Norinchukin Keeps Credit Buildup to Fix $266 Billion Portfolio

Norinchukin Bank isn’t letting recent credit blowups in the US deter it from a plan to increase investments in the space.

The agricultural lender, one of Japan’s biggest institutional investors, remains sanguine over corporate and household credit in the US, according to its Chief Investment Officer Katsuhiko Ushikubo. “We won’t stop investment,” he said in an interview in Tokyo on Monday.

Ushikubo, who took the role in April, is in charge of Norinchukin’s efforts to repair its ¥40.7 trillion ($266 billion) investment portfolio after the bank lost billions of dollars on foreign bonds last fiscal year. Part of that ...