Mizuho Financial to Name New CEO, Replacing Maeda

an. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Mizuho Financial Group Inc., the Japanese bank that posted Asia’s largest subprime-related losses, will name a new chief executive officer today to replace Terunobu Maeda, who has led the company since 2002.

The Tokyo-based lender will also name new CEOs of its two main banking units, spokeswoman Masako Shiono said by telephone. The appointments will be announced in a press conference at 11:30 a.m. local time.

Maeda, 64, will be replaced by Takashi Tsukamoto, the current deputy president of the group company, the Nikkei newspaper reported earlier, without saying where it got the information. Tsukamoto, 58, joined Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, one of Mizuho’s predecessor companies, in 1974 and became deputy president of the group company in June 2008.

Maeda has remained at the post “much longer than anybody expected,” said Stephen Church, a research partner at JapanInvest, a Tokyo-based research firm. “He has been a very active manager, but has a low profile.”

Mizuho Bank Ltd. CEO Seiji Sugiyama will be replaced by his deputy Satoru Nishibori, while Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. chief Hiroshi Saito will be succeeded by deputy Yasuhiro Sato, the Nikkei said. Maeda will probably become chairman of the group company, according to the report.

Subprime Losses

Mizuho, the second-largest Japanese bank by revenue, posted about 672 billion yen ($7.5 billion) in credit losses and writedowns tied to the collapse of the U.S. subprime-mortgage market on Maeda’s watch, according to Bloomberg data. The amount represents almost one-quarter of total subprime-related losses by Asian financial firms.

The company joined Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Japan’s biggest bank, and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. in slashing profit forecasts in October as the nation’s deepening recession fueled rising bad loans and tumbling markets eroded the value of their stockholdings.

Mizuho, which invested $1.2 billion in Merrill Lynch & Co. last year, has announced plans to raise 355 billion yen to shore up its balance sheet after net income plunged 71 percent to 94.6 billion yen in the fiscal first half ended Sept. 30.

The bank’s shares have dropped 47 percent in the past 12 months, the ninth-biggest decline among 84 lenders tracked by the Topix Banks Index. The shares rose 0.4 percent to 241 yen as of 11 a.m. trading break in Tokyo.

Maeda, a University of Tokyo graduate, joined Fuji Bank Ltd. in 1968. The company merged with Industrial Bank of Japan Ltd. and Dai-Ichi Kangyo in 2000 to form Mizuho, then the world’s largest bank by assets.