Huis ten Bosch broke

[thomas]

Huis ten Bosch declared bankruptcy. It seems Japanese are tired of their little Dutch village.

A Japanese Theme Park Company Fails

The Huis Ten Bosch Company, one of Japan's largest theme park operators, has declared bankruptcy, highlighting the mounting troubles in the country's vast government-financed recreation industry. The collapse of the company, with debt of 220 billion yen ($1.8 billion), is the latest evidence of the breakdown between local governments and Japan's commercial banks, which together helped build many parks in the 1980's and 1990's. [...]

Huis Ten Bosch, which means house in the forest in Dutch, was one of the largest such ventures. Opened in 1992, the park is modeled on the 17th-century Dutch enclave in Nagasaki and was financed largely by Mizuho Holdings Inc., Nagasaki Prefecture and a consortium of three dozen companies. Mizuho Holdings, Japan's largest bank by assets, may not recover the 102.3 billion yen it lent to Huis Ten Bosch, though it added that the potential loss should not affect its earnings. The park's failure is the legacy of a government-led expansion into local areas. In the 1980's, lawmakers in Tokyo, eager to send money back to their home prefectures, urged banks and local governments to build resorts, golf courses and other recreational developments. Tokyo gave local governments extra handouts, and banks, assuming the projects had government guarantees, made additional loans.

=> A Japanese Theme Park Company Fails (Published 2003)

Related links

=> http://www.japanreference.com/cgi-bin/jump.cgi?ID=2978

=> http://www.japanreference.com/cgi-bin/jump.cgi?ID=2979 (official site)

 

[Maciamo]

That's another hard hit on Mizuho's unperforming loans. Who knows, it's maybe just a fake bankruptcy because everyone knows Mizuho is going to go down in a not so remote future and Huis-ten-Bosch managers just hope to cash as much as they can and retire before Mizuho is nationalised (because after they won't escape the government for their loan). That's so common practice in business...

 

[jirzji]

Huis Ten Bosch, which means house in the forest in Dutch,

the dutch won't like you saying this, so let me explain (belgians share the dutch culture)

"Ten Bosh" is a (former) family name. Going back to it's ethymology, it means "in/from the bush" indeed. But the term "Huis" or "Huys" in old Dutch, usually referred to a family or family dwelling or business.

There must be a relation to the dutch community that resided in southern Japan with the foreign trade missions.