SBI, Dow Jones plan Japan WSJ

Financial services provider SBI Holdings Inc. said Thursday it will form a joint venture with Dow Jones & Co. to launch a Japanese-language Web site of the Wall Street Journal by the end of this year. The joint venture, Wall Street Journal Japan K.K., will be capitalized at ¥400 million and owned 60 percent by Dow Jones and 40 percent by SBI. The Japanese-language WSJ Web site will be the second non-English WSJ site in Asia, following the Chinese version launched in 2002. The joint venture will also take over Japanese-language information services by a Japanese subsidiary of Dow Jones.