Last Year, Japanese Corporate M&A Surpasses 4,000 Deals... 'Record High'

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Last year, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) by Japanese companies exceeded 4,000 cases, marking an all-time high.

According to a report by Asahi Shimbun on the 3rd citing Japanese M&A information firm "Recof Data," the number of M&A cases involving Japanese companies, including investments, totaled 4,280 (preliminary figure) last year. This represents a 14.7% (550 cases) increase compared to the previous year, setting a record high on an annual basis.

The total transaction value of Japanese companies' M&A deals last year reached 16.4844 trillion yen (approximately 170 trillion KRW).

The largest deal was the sale of MUFG Union Bank, the American subsidiary bank of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, with a transaction size of 1.9 trillion yen.

Union Bank, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi UFJ in 2008, is based in California on the U.S. West Coast and operates about 300 branches.

Mitsubishi UFJ initially planned to develop Union Bank as the core of its U.S. business, but due to poor performance influenced by low interest rates, it proceeded with the sale.

Following the Mitsubishi UFJ-Union Bank sale, the second largest M&A deal by Japanese companies last year involved Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, a comprehensive electrical and electronics company, acquired the U.S. IT giant "GlobalLogic" for about 1 trillion yen and decided to sell all its shares (about 800 billion yen) of Hitachi Metals, a Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed subsidiary, to a U.S.-Japan fund alliance including the American investment fund Bain Capital and the Japanese fund Japan Industrial Partners (JIP).

Next, the deal by ENEOS Holdings, Japan's largest petroleum product supplier, was also considered a record-level M&A deal. ENEOS sold its subsidiary NIPPO, which specializes in road paving, for 190 billion yen.

ENEOS also finalized the sale of its British subsidiary producing crude oil in the North Sea for about 190 billion yen.

The company also acquired "Japan Renewable Energy," a renewable energy firm engaged in solar power and other businesses, by investing 200 billion yen.

ENEOS anticipates that domestic demand for petroleum products in Japan will be halved by 2040 due to the spread of electric vehicles and is accelerating the restructuring of its petroleum-related businesses.

Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., Ltd. (JAPEX), which had been developing shale gas and oil sands projects in Canada, incurred a total loss of 130 billion yen and withdrew from the business by selling its local subsidiary.

In addition, there have been successive cases of Japanese companies, mainly general trading companies, divesting from coal-fired power generation and coal mine development as part of business restructuring to align with the global decarbonization trend.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.