Japanese firms went on a record buying spree of foreign companies in the first half of the year, according to a new survey, as the strong yen prompts them to eye overseas acquisitions.
The number of merger and acquisition (M&A) deals stood at 262 in the first six months of this year, the highest number since 1985 when comparative data first became available, the study by Tokyo-based advisory Recof showed.
The data topped a previous first-half record of 247 deals in 1990, when Japanese stock market and real-estate prices hit record levels before the bubble burst, sending the economy into a tailspin.
Deals in the first half were valued at ¥3.49 trillion (US$43.7 billion), compared with ¥3.2 trillion in the first six months of last year, but still below a peak of ¥4.47 trillion in the first six months of 2006, Recof said.
The advisory company said the largest deal in the period was Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group’s purchase of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s aircraft leasing arm for about US$7.3 billion.
In other deals, Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp said in May it had agreed to buy US grain giant Gavilon LLC for about US$3.6 billion, while trader Mitsubishi Corp purchased a 40 percent stake in Encana Corp’s Canadian shale gas assets for about US$2.9 billion.
Japanese companies have been aggressively seeking mergers and acquisitions abroad in recent years, taking advantage of the yen’s strength to diversify their operations and make them globally competitive.
The nation’s aging population and slowing domestic demand have prompted firms to look beyond its borders for growth.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by