Embattled insurer American International Group Inc. is close to selling its Japanese headquarters for around $1 billion to help pay off its debt to Washington, The Wall Street Journal said Monday.

Sumitomo Mitsui is taking over Citigroup’s Japan brokerage businesses, both sides said Friday, as part of a bigger plan to restructure the struggling U.S. bank. The deal is Japan’s first acquisition of a leading brokerage by a bank.

The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares declined modestly Friday on light profit-taking as many of the world’s biggest markets were closed for the May Day public holiday, while Japan’s stock market hit a four-month high.

An acclaimed poet who had been working on a book about volcanoes disappeared five days ago during a scouting expedition on a tropical island in southern Japan.

Japanese stocks advanced while those in Australia and New Zealand dipped in quiet trading Friday with most of the region’s markets closed and investors awaiting key events in the coming week.

Japan’s jobless rate jumped to its highest in more than four years in March and household spending extended its slide, underscoring the ongoing pain for the world’s second-biggest economy. Prices also fell, fueling concerns about deflation.

Japan has donated $4.17 million to the U.N.-backed genocide tribunal trying former Khmer Rouge leaders on war crimes charges, just as the troubled court was running out of funding, a court official said Friday.

Japan says its jobless rate rose and household spending fell in March.

The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. on Thursday posted a $1.2 billion first-quarter loss, and said it is suspending sales of annuities in Japan and the U.K. and halting plans to sell the products in Germany in a move to cut costs.

Softbank Corp., Japan’s third-biggest mobile carrier, said Thursday that it sank into a loss in the fiscal fourth quarter on one-time costs, including launching a superfast Internet service.