Japan

Outbound Chinese M&A deal-flow has slowed to a crawl even as inbound activity remains steady. So focus in the region is moving elsewhere: to rising India, steady-and-lucrative Australia and even Japan, where once-bloated conglomerates are streamlining portfolios under intense pressure from activist shareholders.

The Japanese bank sees Greenhill as the missing M&A piece in its US product offering. Asiamoney speaks to the New York-based CEO of Mizuho Securities US operations Jerry Rizzieri, and US head of investment and corporate banking, Michal Katz, about the bank’s ambitions.

How on earth, in this environment, did the bank deliver one of its best-ever quarters in Asia?

Tech-related bank deals can still get away, but investors call the shots now.

Nomura has taken its corporate social responsibility initiatives in Japan and overseas very seriously for a long time. It has been involved in pioneering financial literacy since the 1990s – and it is still a key area of focus.

Citi’s global franchise needs little introduction. The same is the case in Japan, where the US bank has been present for 120 years and has built a reputation for offering world-class financial products and services.

Japan’s biggest banks generally recorded solid performance in the financial year ending March 31, 2022, thanks to their retail and global corporate banking business lines. Of the lot, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group impressed the most, making it Asiamoney’s best domestic bank in Japan in 2022.

Small and medium-sized enterprises in Japan still face a tough business environment: even though the effects of the pandemic have eased somewhat, supply-side limitations, such as a rise in raw material costs and fuel hikes, have added to the pressure.