BOJ sells $900 mln in shares in 3 months to Dec

TOKYO, Jan 11 (Reuters) - The Bank of Japan said on Friday it sold about 100 billion yen ($900 million) of shares in the three months to December, keeping with its pledge to unload its shareholdings slowly so as not to disrupt financial markets.

The central bank's shareholdings stood at around 1.5 trillion yen at the end of last year, BOJ Governor Toshihiko Fukui said at a lower house financial committee.

That was down from 1.6 trillion yen as of end-September.

The BOJ began selling the shares from October. In doing so, the bank has said the sale would be conducted at a measured pace so as not to disrupt markets. It also said it would temporarily halt selling if share price indexes fell sharply.

The BOJ had bought about 2 trillion yen of shares from banks in a scheme it set up in September 2002 in an unprecedented move to ward off a financial crisis.

Of that total, some had been sold before last October, mostly in response to companies' requests to buy back their own shares.

The BOJ sells its shareholdings at stock exchanges through trust banks and has not disclosed what kind of shares it holds.

The central bank has said it will sell the shares evenly during a 10-year period from October, during which time it plans to unload all the stock it bought under the scheme. (Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Mike Miller)