Mitsubishi's new Colt model is enjoying good sales

The new buyers of the shares have not been named, but analysts believe Goldman Sachs has sold them to global institutional investors.

Shares in Mitsubishi Motors, Japan's only loss-making carmaker, fell 11% on the news.

Commentators said investors were not pleased by the quick resale.

Scandal aftermath

"Investors are turned off by the frequent changes in MMC's [Mitsubishi Motors] stakeholders, especially given that the company is going through restructuring now," said Nagayuki Yamagishi, strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities.

Mitsubishi Motors has been struggling in the face of a defect scandal.

Last year, it was forced to admit that it had previously covered up a number of faults to avoid bad publicity.

Last week Mitsubishi said sales were recovering in Japan and Europe, but were still falling in the US.