Corporate Japan: Back on track

David Drake:

Bloomberg reports Japan Posts Back-to-Back Current-Account Deficit in December. Japan posted back-to-back monthly current-account deficits for the first time since 1981, highlighting challenges for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s campaign to revive the economy.

It arrived a day late but the news is still especially significant given the extent to which the country’s much loved chartered banks already dominate the financial landscape. Vancouver-based Steadyhand Investment Management Ltd., a money management firm started a few years back by Tom Bradley, has been acquired by a consortium of Canadian banks.

YORKSHIRE dealmakers have overseen a deal which saw TFS Systems acquired by rapidly expanding Goldshield Electronic Systems.John Longstaff and Tim Brind of BHP Corporate Finance acted as lead advisors...

Last weekend, internet pioneer Ted Nelson speculated that the creator of Bitcoin (who goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto) was actually Japanese math professor Shinichi Mochizuki. This was the latest theory in an extremely long hunt by various researchers and journalists trying to identify Nakamoto.

PURE Data Solutions is on the acquisition trail, said its managing director, as the firm reports a 52 per cent jump in annual turnover to £12m.

ABBEYDALE Food Group is to continue on the acquisition trail, said its managing director, after buying Yorkshire-based Pie Toms, one of the few remaining manufacturers of mushy peas.

Investors who participated in the country’s latest Maple transaction — a $650-million, five-year 3.375% offering from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. — are hoping that they do as well as investors did last year with a similar offering by the same issuer. At a session held this week in Toronto by Montreal-based money manager Pembroke Management, Richard Usher-Jones, a partner at Canso Investment Counsel, a firm that sub-advises to Pembroke, explained how a bond returned 17% last year, yet interest rates are near or at their lowest levels in many years.