Wednesday, June 11, 2008

The Saga Continues

Today I got another letter from Japan from (this is on the envelope)
Bankrupt company Nova Corporation
Trustee in bankruptcy Lawyer Toshiaki Higashibata
Trustee in bankruptcy Lawyer Noriaki Takahashi

This was a slight surprise since I got my money a long time ago and didn't expect to have anything more to do with them. It turns out that it's just a letter sent out to all creditors updating them on the status of bankruptcy proceedings. The letter is actually a pretty good telling of the story of the "Fall of Nova" going back all the way to the start of the first school in Shinsaibashi. Even the English is pretty good, although in that overly formal style that Japanese legalese tends to become when translated.

The main point of the letter was the summary of assets and liabilities. The following table is taken from the letter

Assetsvalue (yen)
Liquidation value6,489,307,392
Total Assets6,489,307,392
Liabilities
Pledged Assets3,560,000,000
Taxes and public dues2,929,307,392
Outstanding wages5,525,934,129
Other Estate claims1400,000,000
General claims275,756,372,131
Total Liabilities87,496,160,639

1) this is an estimate for the cost of ending all the leases on places and cleaning them up.
2) This is mostly the 56.4 billion yen worth of unused lessons paid for by students.

Comparing the total assets and liabilities I think we can see where the problem was. Let's just say I'm glad the government was giving me my payout and not the company.

One odd thing they said was that they were expecting to get a tax refund of about a billion yen. This is because the company had paid the consumption tax on prepaid lessons ahead of time at a rate of 45% of the value even though it seems they didn't have to do so until the lessons were taken. When the business was an operating concern, this sort of worked out because the other 55% of the tax that was due when the lessons were taken would be the 45% prepaid from other lessons. However, since the lessons aren't being taken, it seems the consumption tax on them no longer applies, so the company can get some of that prepaid money back. It seems a bit weird and I may have misunderstood how it actually works.

Anyway, unless I get another letter about it, I think this might be the end of the Nova Saga. Rest in Peace Usagi.

End Post
Writing time: 37 minutes
Time since last post: 11 days (I've been slack)
Current media: the soundtrack from Rushmore

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Does that letter have a fax or some contact details for the trustees? I'm getting shafted by the zombie bunny big time regarding back pay

Esonlinji said...

The recent letter only has an address, no fax number, but there was a fax number included with the application form. The contact details are:
Nishi Temma Asahi Bldg 2F
10-14 Nishi Temma 1 cho-me
Kita-ku
Osaka-shi, 530-0047.

The fax number was 06-6360-6766. With the application it said to address correspondence to the Trustees as "Attention Jinji Kanri", but that is from February.

I'd also suggest checking Let's Japan" as the forums there have a lot of helpful information.

Hope that helps you get what you can from the bunny's corpse.