2007 Update: Funds and China

The sample analysis in the last chapter runs to 2004. The period of three years since then to the time of writing is hardly long enough to distinguish with absolute certainty the emergence of new trends in the world of the Japanese LME, but enough has occurred nevertheless to enable the observer to be conscious of significant portents, signs implying the course of transformations in the offing. If they have a leitmotif it is the emerging foreign factor; the choices presented to Japanese LMEs are increasingly laced with an international flavor. Of the LME population of 429, five were listed for the first time on the stock exchange during the period from 2004 to 2007 while another 15 were upgraded within it. Over the three years in question no sample LME simply went bankrupt. However, a handful were delisted having been bought out or merged with companies in the same industry and of similar size as has already been recorded in Chapter 9 regarding toy makers Tomy and Takara. Most of this merger and acquisition activity was amicable, but there are omens that the alien hostile takeover is on the horizon. There was also one management buyout — another recent import — involving the soft drinks maker Pokka for reconstruction purposes. This case and Takara Tomy also point to another recently developing scenario: the involvement of funds in corporate management as shareholders. For Pokka and Takara Tomy they are welcome partners. For others they are aggressive interlopers and often, moreover, not Japanese. This growing foreign involvement in ownership together with the irrepressible rise of China are the two factors most likely to affect the destiny of Japanese specialist manufacturers over the coming decade.