Citigroup may have its hands full with its United States consumer business and cleaning up the mess from the collapse in subprime, but it is certainly confident about the Japanese financial-services market.

Citigroup is buying out the balance of Nikko Cordial, Japan's third-largest securities firm, that it does not already own for $4.6 billion.

 Holders of 32 percent of the shares of Nikko will get Citigroup stock worth $14.74, or 1,700 yen, per share. Earlier this year, Citigroup bought 68 percent of Nikko for about  $8 billion.

The deal may be the first that takes advantage of a new law that was passed this spring. Foreign subsidiaries in Japan can now use their own shares when buying a Japanese company.

"This is no small event," Toru Kitani, senior investment manager at Sompo Japan Asset Management, told Reuters. "Foreign capital has ventured into the Japanese financial sector in other forms before but this is one of Japan's big three brokerages."