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TOKYO, March 8 (Reuters) -- Resona Holdings said it would buy back 881.9 billion yen ($10.7 billion) of its preferred shares from the government, cutting the amount it owes taxpayers from bailouts in the late 1990s and in 2003.
Resona, Japan's fourth-largest bank, in January raised about $6.6 billion in a global share offering to help it repay the money.
Resona said it still owes the government 871.6 billion yen. The government retains 450 billion yen in preferred shares which it bought in 2003. The bank plans to buy them in about five years.
The government also owns 261.6 billion yen in common shares in the bank. Resona is not planning to ask the governemnt to sell them, it said.
In addition, the government owns 160 billion yen in preferred shares in Resona which it bought before Resona's formation through a merger. ($1=82.28 Yen) (Reporting by Junko Fujita; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Edmund Klamann)