According to Futu Securities, Toyota Motor will sell its stake in Aisin Corp., a major auto parts supplier, in the latest sign of the trend for large companies in Japan to unwind their cross-shareholdings. Toyota Motor said that after selling about 13 million shares of Aisin Corp., its stake in the latter will decrease from 24.8% to 20.0%.

Meanwhile, Denso Corp. and Toyota Industries Corp., both subsidiaries of Toyota Group, are also planning to sell their stake in Aisin Corp. Based on Aisin Corp.'s closing price, the deal will be worth 204 billion yen (about 1.3 billion US dollars). The actual price will be determined as early as July 8, according to a statement on Thursday.

Despite the Japanese government's efforts to encourage large Japanese companies to unwind their cross-shareholdings, progress has been slow for banks and enterprises. Earlier this month, Japan's two largest banks, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, revealed plans to divest their strategic stakes worth 1.32 trillion yen in Toyota Motor.

In May of this year, Toyota Motor announced a 1 trillion yen share buyback plan, equivalent to 3% of its total shares outstanding, greatly exceeding its previous buyback plan. In addition, Aisin Corp. said in another statement that it will conduct a 1-to-3 stock split starting from October 1 and cancel 8.5% of its shares on July 31.