In their first major mergers and acquisitions forays overseas, Chinese companies are being buffeted by Sinophobia and their own lack of nous. Sophie Roell looks at recent deals.

Japan’s banks continue to make steady progress back to health, and many would argue that the big banks are already there. With an aggregate pre-tax profit of $51.3bn, the Japanese banking sector has surpassed last year’s $32.4bn, and left 2003’s pre-tax losses of $39.3bn a distant memory.

A series of unfortunate events at the Tokyo Stock Exchange may be symptomatic of the weakness of Japan’s economy as a whole.

Mizuho Financial Group
Terunobu Maeda, CEO

Research shows that foreign banks operating in Japan have found the going increasingly tough during the past 12 months while the US prepaid card market goes from strength to strength. Stephen Timewell explains.

Investors should not ignore the fact that Japan’s economic recovery is finely balanced, with high oil prices and a shrinking population among the problems that must be addressed sooner or later.

Since Merrill Lynch acquired Yamaichi Securities in 1998, it has not been an easy passage for the firm’s Japanese business. But, as Yoshiyuki Fujisawa tells Sophie Roell, this year, the tide has turned.
It may have been a long time coming, but Merrill Lynch’s Japanese operations have had a bumper year. The bank chalked up about $130m in profits, making it the most lucrative foreign brokerage in Japan. “We enjoyed a good year last year,” says Yoshiyuki Fujisawa, chairman of Merrill Lynch Japan Securities. “And hopefully, this year will be [good], too.”

Nomura may not be the swashbuckling firm that it was in the 1980s and 1990s but, according to Zenji Nakamura, head of global markets, Europe, that will not prevent it from regaining a more prominent position in the international capital markets. Geraldine Lambe finds out how it intends to flex its Asian advantage.

Last month’s proposal of marriage between MTFG and UFJ would create the largest bank in Japan, but it will only be positive news if the two businesses can be integrated, writes Geraldine Lambe
For the Japanese banking system, recuperation has been a long and painful process. It is only now, after more than a decade of despair, that Japan’s so-called mega-banks are ready to start performing as mega-banks should.

After more than a decade wallowing in debt and seemingly unable to turn themselves around, Japan’s banks appear to be looking to new products and client segments to rejuvenate their business models and spread risk throughout the system. Geraldine Lambe reports.
For more than a decade, the Japanese banking system has suffered from painful indigestion – burdened by crippling levels of debt that the banks and the government were unable or unwilling to work out of the system. Whether we blame government policy, overly-cosy relationships between banks and borrowers or a lost decade of recession and deflation, Japan’s banks have for years failed to find a way to make themselves more profitable.