Star Japanese Investor in Probe

Japan’s best-known shareholder activist, fund manager Yoshiaki Murakami, said today that he expected to be charged with insider trading and would resign immediately from his fund.

Murakami said that after discussions with prosecutors he had decided that his actions in connection with a high-profile takeover battle last year initiated by Livedoor Co., a scandal-hit Internet firm, could be interpreted as having violated securities trading laws.

He stressed, however, that at the time he had no intention of breaking the law.

“I consider myself a pro among pros, but I had to consider the outside possibility that I had made a mistake,” he told a packed news conference at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. “I have decided that I have to meekly admit my wrongdoing.”

A probe would mark a widening of fallout from the Livedoor affair, which shook markets early this year.

Livedoor’s former president, Takafumi Horie, 33, and other executives were arrested in January and face charges of breaking securities laws in a separate business deal.

Murakami, a former official at Japan’s trade ministry, has gained fame as a pioneer of Japanese shareholder activism, and the aggressive pressure he puts on target companies to change the way they do business has caused waves in business circles.