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Japan Raids Semiconductor Equipment Maker FOI

Authorities raided FOI Corp.'s head office in Japan suspecting the firm cooked its financial statements when it went public.

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Securities authorities on Wednesday raided semiconductor manufacturing equipment maker FOI Corp.'s head office in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture suspecting the firm cooked its financial statements when it went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market last November.

FOI, which does business with major semiconductor makers mainly in Taiwan, China and South Korea, is suspected of booking bogus sales and padding most of its revenue statements, market sources said.

The Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission suspects FOI, established in October 1994 and capitalized at about 9.5 billion yen, breached the financial instruments and exchange law, and employees may be charged later with fraud.

FOI reported that its consolidated sales for fiscal 2008, which ended March 31, 2009, expanded about 25 percent from a year earlier to 11.8 billion yen, and said it projects its sales to grow further by 10 percent to 13 billion yen in fiscal 2009.

The SESC is also investigating the process under which FOI was listed on the Mothers stock market for start-up companies.

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