M＆A（Mergers and Acquisitions)

What is business matching?

We can help by acting as a bridge between foreign companies wishing to do business with Japanese companies and Japanese companies wishing to do business with foreign companies.

With the spread of global capitalism, cross-border mergers and acquisitions are becoming increasingly common. The firm also deals with cross-border M&A transactions all the time. However, even though capital easily crosses borders via computer networks and business-to-business transactions straddle the world’s oceans, local markets have strong cultural characteristics that are rooted in people’s lives and cannot easily be successfully transacted using capital or legal logic alone. This is where we need to open our hearts and minds and share our empathy to create value together, based on people-to-people trust.

For example, in the MBA course at the Graduate School of Management where I used to teach, the logic is built on the assumption that businesses in the same industry can basically expect the same results regardless of who operates them. On the basis of this logic, financial valuations such as risk and premiums, as well as performance forecasts, are constructed and commercial transactions are carried out in markets around the world. However, what is the reality? Even in similar businesses in the same industry, independent companies such as A and B can perform very differently. Typical in Japan are the Kansai railway companies Hankyu Corporation and Hanshin Electric Railway. The two companies were exactly the same companies in the same industry, with competing routes between Umeda in Osaka and Sannomiya in Kobe. Furthermore, JR West’s Tokaido Main Line also ran parallel between the two companies. Today, Hankyu and Hanshin have merged, but their performance before the merger was quite different. Of course, they never had exactly the same performance because of the different routes, but they were still in full competition on the main lines. We can see examples like this where different companies competing strongly in the same market can have very different performance. It is not uncommon to find other markets dominated by major players, such as major banks, convenience stores and mobile phone companies, that also perform very differently. This is proof that companies are built on people and culture.

The ‘matchmaker’ role that bridges companies is important

This is why the ‘matchmaker’ role is so important, bridging companies that are made up of people and cultures. In order to create a peaceful and prosperous society beyond national borders, it is important to value the harmonious fusion of people and cultures to become a company that is trusted and safely traded throughout the world. This is not limited to mergers and acquisitions, but also applies to business alliances and ordinary transactions.