TOKYO - Thousands of customers rushed to withdraw money from failed brokerage Yamaichi Securities, causing its computer systems to overload, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Yamaichi, Japan's fourth-largest brokerage firm, announced its decision to close Monday, a national holiday. Tuesday, about 4,000 customers crowded its 116 branches nationwide, withdrawing almost $4 billion from accounts, a company spokesman said.
Yamaichi's computer system didn't return to normal processing speed until early afternoon Wednesday, forcing the company to turn away some people who demanded immediate cash payments early in the day.
Even with the computers functioning, all transactions were entered manually into the system, and Yamaichi employees were unable to keep up with the volume of transactions, the spokesman added.
Account holders slogged through the rain to Yamaichi's Marunouchi branch in downtown Tokyo, where they waited in line for 30 minutes to cancel or get money back from their accounts.
With liabilities exceeding $24 billion, Yamaichi's was the biggest corporate failure in Japan since World War II. With stock prices slumping, it was unable to raise operating funds, but government officials have said it has enough assets to cover its debts.
Yamaichi plans to let all of its customers retrieve money from investment trusts and other funds, along with any stock certificates held in trust. That could keep its doors open for as long as six months, said the spokesman, who declined to give the total number of Yamaichi's clients.
Japan's Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission has begun an investigation of the company's massive off-book debt load.
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