Citigroup Inc. has been removed from the group of private-sector companies that manage Japanese government pension funds.
A Tokyo spokeswoman for the U.S. financial giant confirmed Tuesday that Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund is no longer one of its customers.
A spokesman at the fund said it recently canceled fund-management contracts with 40 companies. He would not say whether Citi was one of them, but an annual report issued last week summarizing the fund's operations in the last fiscal year, showed that Cititrust and Banking Corp. was not on the list of fund managers as of March 31.
Officials at Citi and the fund would not say why the company was dropped. In April, the Japanese government imposed administrative sanctions on Cititrust and Banking for violation of laws governing the control, settlement, and clearing of trust assets, unregistered sales of mutual funds, and other improper transactions.
Citigroup has said it will shut the unit down by October.
