On 12 May 2023 Nippon Express (TSE:9147) announced the approval by the Board of Directors to acquire a majority of the Austrian logistics group Cargo-Partner Group Holdings AG and its subsidiaries. In total Nippon Express acquires 63 companies, the holding company Cargo-Partner Group Holding AG, and 62 subsidiary companies. In one of these a minority share holder remains.
From Nippon Express point of view, the acquisition’ purpose is to expand Nippon Express’ logistics network and resources globally, and especially in Europe, implementing “Nippon Express Group Business plan 2023 – Dynamic Growth”, which was presented in 2018/2019.
Interestingly, Nippon Express expects also to learn from Cargo-Partner’s know-how in digitization and IT systems and operational efficiency.
The acquisition is via a special purpose company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nippon Express Europe GmbH.
Purchase price: on the order of EURO 1400 Million
EURO 845 million for ordinary shares of Cargo-Partner Group Holdings AG and its subsidiaries (a total of 63 companies), to be adjusted according to net debt and working capital.
In addition a maximum of EURO 555 million “earn-out”, conditional on Cargo-Partner’s earnings reaching certain thresholds.
Thus the total acquisition price may be on the order of EURO 1400 Million (depending on debt and working capital adjustments, and earnings).
The acquisition depends on certain conditions, and is also subject to antitrust approval.
Nippon Express Holdings KK (NIPPON EXPRESSホルディングス株式会社) (TSE:9147)
Nippon Tsu-un (日本通運、English: Nippon Express) was founded in 1937 on the basis of the “Nippon Tsu-un Company Law” as a semi-government logistics company by combining a number of smaller companies. Nippon Tsu-un’s origins go back to the company Riku-un Moto Kaisha (陸運元会社), founded in June 1872. Nippon Tsu-un was privatized and listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on 16 February 1950 (No. 9062).
On January 4, 2022, the company Nippon Express Holdings KK was incorporated, and Nippon Tsu-un (TSE:9062) was delisted from Tokyo Stock Exchange on 29 December 2021, and became a fully owned subsidiary of Nippon Express Holdings KK (TSE:9147).
Market capitalization: YEN 751 billion (= US$ 5.6 billion, EURO 5 billion)
On 1 July 2022 NEC acquired Irish company Aspire Technology, financial terms were not disclosed, but we estimate company value on the order of €2 million.
Founded December 1950 as 富士臓器製薬株式会社 (Fujizoki Pharmaceutical), first product was a HA Ag TPHA kit, the world’s first hemagglutination test for syphilis testing.
April 1983 the company name was changed to Fujirebio KK (富士レビオ株式会社), and in September 1983 Fujirebio went public with an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (Second Section) and advanced to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (First Section) in June 1987
In April 2017 the company became part of the newly established company Fujirebio Holdings KK (富士レビオ・ホールディングス株式会社)
In July 2017 Fujirebio Holdings KK became 100% subsidiary of Nomiraka Holdings KK, today named: H.U. Group Holdings, Inc. (H.U.グループホールディングス株式会社)
100% subsidiary of H.U. Group Holdings, Inc. (H.U.グループホールディングス株式会社)
specialized on developing, manufacturing and marketing of in vitro diagnostics (IVD) products.
NEC Corporation announced on December 27, 2018 the acquisition of Denmark’s largest IT company, KMD Holding ApS, the holding company of KMD A/S for about 8 billion Danish Kroner (approx. US$ 1.2 billion) from the private equity group Advent International. This acquisition is in line with NEC‘s “Mid-term Management Plan 2020” to shift NEC towards horizontal service platform businesses. The transaction is expected to be completed by end of February 2019.KMD (originally Kommunedata)
founded in 1972 by the merger of municipal IT centers.
1972 – 2009 owned by the national association of municipalities (Kommunernes Landsforening (KL))
2009 sold to EQT Partners (85%) and Arbejdsmarkedets Tillægspension (ATP) (15%) for DKK 2 billion (approx. US$ 310 million). During 2019-2012 KMD was transformed from a government sector organization to a private sector company.
2012 EQT and ATP sold KMD to Advent International
2018/2019 Advent International sold KMD to NEC for about 8 billion Danish Kroner (approx. US$ 1.2 billion)
Daikin Industries Ltd was founded in 1924 as Osaka Kinzoku Kogpyosho LP by Akira Yamada in Osaka.
1963 the name was changed to Daikin Kogyo Co Ltd, and
in 1982 the name was changed to Daikin Industries Ltd.
AHT is an abbreviation for Austria Haustechnik (Austrian home technologies), and its headquarters are in Rottenmann (Steiermark, Austria). AHT produces refrigerators and freezers, 60% of sales are refrigerators and freezers for super markets. German discount supermarket giants Aldi and Lidl are among AHT’s customers.
In 1998 AHT listed with an IPO on the Vienna Stock Exchange.
In 2003, AHT was fully acquired by Quadriga Capital for € 35 Million and delisted.
Quadriga sold AHT to Germany Investment Firm Equita.
In 2006, Quadriga acquired AHT back from Equita, and in Mai 2013 was reported to seek selling AHT for at least € 450 Million.
Annual sales:
€ 222.7 Million (2011)
€ 380 Million (2015)
Employees: 1250 (global)
CEO: Thomas Babacan
COO: Frank Elsen
Sansei Technologies, based in Osaka (Japan), on 30 March 2018 acquired 100% of the Dutch roller coaster maker Vekoma.
Vekoma Rides Manufacturing BV
Vekoma Rides was founded in 1926, initially producing farming and mining equipment. Today Vekoma produces roller coasters and amusement park equipment including the Junior Coaster, the Suspended Family Coaster, Boomerang, Suspended Looping Coaster, Flying Dutchman, and others.
Sansei Technologies KK (三精テクノロジーズ株式会社) is based in Osaka (Japan), listed on the Tokyo Stock Exhange (No 6357), market cap on the order of ¥15 billion (US$ 100 million).
Sansei was founded on 27 February 1951, and is focused on planning, designiing, manufacturing, installing, repairing and maintenance of amusement park rides and roller coasters, elevators, theatre stage equipment and similar equipment.
Irish wind energy investments were announced by trading company Sojitz, Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance and Kansai Electric Power Corporation.
Sojitz, Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance and Kansai Electric Power Corporation have established the special purpose company ShaMrocK Wind Limited.
ShaMrocK Wind Limited will acquire 60% of shares in Evalair Wind Limited from Invisible Energy for a reported €300m, valuing Evalair Wind Limited at €500m.
Note the interesting composition of the Japanese investment joint venture ShaMrocK Wind Limited: the Japanese trading company Sojitz, the Mitsubishi group leasing unit, and Kansai Electric Power Corporation. In this combination, Sojitz contributes international business experience and know-how, and private-equity type investment know-how, Mitsubishi’s leasing unit provides financing know-how, while Kansai Electric Power contributes electricity operator know-how. At the same time, the Japanese consortium gains wind power knowledge, since wind power development in Japan is in relatively earlier stages of development than in Europe, see: https://www.eurotechnology.com/store/j_renewable/
Evalair Wind Limited
Evalair Wind Limited is a wind power plant operating company.
Directors: Michael Murnane, David Murnane
Share holders
ShaMrocK Limited: 60%
Invis Energy (JV between Michael Murnane, Craydel Group, HG Capital): 40%
Japanese companies have a dramatically different culture than Western, European or US companies, and Dentsu is one of Japan’s more traditional companies, at the same time home to Japanese creative talent.
To bridge this gap in cultures, Dentsu acquired the French/UK company Aegis Group plc on 5 July 2012, creating Dentsu Aegis Network. Dentsu has used Dentsu Aegis Network as a bridge head for many acquisitions in Europe and the Mediterranean are, bridging cultural differences.
Gleam Futures: “We manage digital-first talent”
Gleam Futures describe their business as “we develop, monetize & protect” digital-first talent, e.g. YouTube stars.
Established: 2010
Employees: 37
Talents: 40
Combined subscriber base: approx. 60 million
Revenues: UK Pounds 4.35 million (Fiscal Year ending Dec 2016
ISOLITE acquired by Hitachi Chemical to build global speciality insulation materials group
ISOLITE acquired by Hitachi Chemical from private equity fund HQ Equita, as announced on 27 and 28 April 2017.
Isolite – High Temperature Solutions
Isolite produces and sells a range of insulation materials and solutions specifically for the high temperature sector up to 1600C for the automotive, aircraft and other industrial sectors.
Isolite GmbH
CEO: Christian Eck
founded: 1997
employees: 410
patents: 12
manufacture and sales of thermal insulations for automobiles, aircraft, and other industrial applications
Nippon Electric Glass acquires PPG glass fibre manufacturing and R&D in Hoogezand (Netherlands) and Wigan (UK)
Reinforcement materials for transportation, energy, infrastructure and consumer markets
On June 20, 2016 PPG and Nippon Electric Glass (NEG, TYO:5214) announced that Nippon Electric Glass will acquire PPG’s European fibre glass operations, subject to employee consultations, regulatory and other approvals. The acquisitions were completed on October 3, 2016.
PPG’s European Fibre glass operations employ approximately 550 people, and achieved about EURO 150 million in sales in 2015.
Nippon Electric Glass aims to expand its glass fibre business:
by acquiring production facilities in Europe
increasing the chopped glass fibre strands business
adding new glass fibre product lines
Total assets: approx. € 90 million Total annual revenues: approx. € 150 million
Main products: chopped strands for reinforced plastics Main markets: composite materials for auto parts
New name after acquisition: Electric Glass Fiber NL BV Location: Hoogezand, Netherlands Capital: € 16 million Established: April 28, 1961 Ownership: 100% Nippon Electric Glass Co Ltd.
PPG Industries (UK) Ltd
132 Leigh Road, Hindley Green, Wigan, Lancashire WN2 4XG, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Main products: direct rovings for reinforced plastics Main markets: blades for wind power generation, composite materials for auto parts approximately 220 employees (plus temporary staff)
New name after acquisition: Electric Glass Fiber UK Ltd. Capital: UKL 30 million Established: July 8, 2016 Ownership: 100% Nippon Electric Glass Co Ltd.
Seller: PPG (Pittsburgh Plate Glass)
Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG) was founded in 1883 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and today operates about 156 factories globally and in 2015 achieved revenues of around US$ 15.3 billion.
Acquirer: Nippon Electric Glass KK (NEG)
Nippon Electric Glass KK (NEG) was established in 1944 with an investment from NEC Corporation and others, and separated from NEC, and was incorporated as an independent company in 1949.
Today NEG has about US$ 2.4 billion in annual revenues and produces about 20% of the global production of glass for liquid crystal displays, and other speciality glass products.
SoftBank acquires ARM: acquisition completed on 5 September 2016, following 10 years of “unreciprocated love” for ARM
On 18 July 2016 SoftBank announced a “Strategic Agreement”, that SoftBank plans to acquire ARM Holdings plc for £24.0 billion (US$ 31.4 billion, ¥ 3.3 trillion) paid as follows:
SoftBank’s acquisition of Vodafone Japan – in combination with having developed YAHOO-Japan into the leading internet service company in Japan – enabled SoftBank to become a key global player in mobile communications.
Masayoshi Son: unreciprocated love for ARM for 10 years
In the Nikkei interview of 3 September 2016, Masayoshi Son explains that he had an “one-sided / unreciprocated love for ARM” for at least 10 years, but decided to acquire SPRINT first. After acquiring SPRINT he had to pay down debt before being able to acquire ARM now.
ARM Holdings plc
ARM was founded on 27 November 1990 as Advanced RISC Machines, however the abbreviation ARM was first used in 1983 and initially meant “Acorn RISC Machines”.
Acorn Computers Ltd was founded in 1978 in Cambridge (UK) by Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry to produce computers, and its most famous product was the BBC Micro Computer.
ARM has built an ecosystem of IC design systems and platforms which are at the core of low energy consumption ICs and CPUs for smartphones and many other electronic devices and cars. ARM may become or already is one of the core technology companies for the Internet of Things (IoT).
SoftBank’s ARM Business Department’s name changed to “New Business Department”
On 3 September 2016 SoftBank announced that the name of SoftBank’s ARM Business Department has been changed to SoftBank New Business Department.
Toray acquires Delta-Tech: 55% of Italian fiber manufacturer Delta-Tech SpA including Delta-Preg SpA
Toray management program Project AP-G 2016: “thorough implementation of growth strategy through innovation and aggressive management”
Toray acquires Delta-Tech: acquires 55% of outstanding shares of the Italian prepreg manufacturer Delta-Tech SpA including the fully owned subsidiary Delta-Preg SpA.
Delta-Tech SpA and Delta-Preg SpA
Delta-Tech SpA was founded in 1999 for products in the composite materials industry.
Delta-Tech product groups include:
fabrics: woven carbon, multi axial stitched carbon, woven glass…
UD tapes: HS carbon fiber, IM carbon fiber etc
Kordo: pre-formed edging system
SIMS: Semi-impregnated micro-sandwich, laminates based on the use of non-woven needle punched fabrics with micro-sandwich structures. Applications are automotive body panels and personal protection equipment
Delta-Preg SpA was founded in 2001 and manufactures textiles.
Pre-preg
Pre-Preg are pre-impregnated composite fibers with a matrix material such as epoxy.
Toray’s medium term management program “Project AP-G 2016” (from April 2014 to March 2017)
Consolidated net sales: YEN 2.3 trillion (US$ 23 billion)
Consolidated operating income: YEN 180 billion (US$ 1.8 billion)
ROA 8%
ROE 10%
Toray’s long term vision “AP-Growth TORAY 2020“: become “a global top company of advanced materials”
AP-Growth TORAY 2020 is a unified growth map for the next 10 years based on Toray’s corporate vision of “contributing to society through the creation of new value with innovative ideas, technologies and products”.
Key KPI’s for AP-Growth TORAY 2020 (to be achieved around 2020)
consolidated net sales: YEN 3 trillion (US$ 30 billion)
Consolidated operating income: YEN 300 billion (US$ 3 billion)
Operating income margin: 10%
ROA: 10%
ROE: 13%
Toray Industries, Inc. (東レ株式会社) “Innovation by chemistry” (化学による革新と創造) (TSE 3402, LSE TKK)
Toray Industries, Inc. (東レ株式会社) was founded on 12 January 1926 with an investment by Mitsui Bussan. The company was incorporated as Touyou Rayon (東洋レーヨン) on 16 April 1926.
In 1970 the company name was changed to Toray KK (東レ株式会社). Toray is the abbreviation of Touyou Rayon (東洋レーヨン).
Toray’s main business are:
fibers and textiles
plastics and chemicals
IT related products: films, color filters, products for IC production, graphics materials
carbon fiber composites
environment and engineering: water treatment membranes, materials for housing, environmental equipment
life science
other: analysis, research related services
Toray builds integrated supply chain in Europe
Through a program of acquisitions, Toray is building an integrated supply chain in Europe:
Delta-Tech SpA and Delta-Prepreg SpA
Saati SpA’s European carbon fiber fabric and prepreg business, renamed: Composite Materials (Italy) S.r.l., (CIT)
Alcantara S.p.A.: Trading activities, manufacture and marketing of ALCANTARA®, unique covering material
Toray Carbon Fibers Europe S.A. (CFE): polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursor
Toray Films Europe S.A.S. (TFE)
Toray Textiles Central Europe s.r.o. (TTCE)
Euro Advanced Carbon Fiber Composites GmbH (EACC): Manufacture and marketing of CFRP parts and components for automobile
ACE Advanced Composite Engineering GmbH (ACE)
Toray International Europe GmbH (TIEU)
Toray Resins Europe GmbH (TREU): Import and sales of resin products
Greenery GmbH: Development, manufacturing, and sales of fuel cells and water electrolysis components
Toray Membrane Spain S.L. (TMSP): Marketing and consulting of water treatment membranes
Toray Membrane Europe AG (TMEu): Importing and Sales of RO membrane element, UF/MF hollow fiber membrane module, and submerged module of flat sheet membrane
Toray International U.K. Ltd. (TIUK): trading
Toray Textiles Europe Ltd. (TTEL): Weaving and dyeing of polyester filament textiles
“Mr. Suzuki didn’t want to be a VW employee, and that’s understandable” (Prof. Dudenhoeffer via Bloomberg)
Suzuki Volkswagen divorce: Volkswagen makes approx US$ 1.3 billion profit, Suzuki comes out more or less even
by Gerhard Fasol, All Rights Reserved. 18 September 2015, updated: 27 September 2015
Suzuki Volkswagen divorce. “Mr. Suzuki didn’t want to be a VW employee” (Prof. Dudenhoeffer via Bloomberg). What can we learn?
A smiling Martin Winterkorn and Osamu Suzuki (79 years old at that time) looking the other way celebrated their freshly agreed “comprehensive partnership” at a press conference in Tokyo on December 9, 2009. Friends of mine who attended this press conference told me later that the lack of communication between Martin Winterkorn and Osamu Suzuki was quite visible to the audience, and that they already then had doubts about the future of this partnership.
Its interesting to look at the faces of Mr Winterkorn and Mr Suzuki in Reuters’ photograph of the occasion – a beaming Mr Winterkorn, and Mr Suzuki looking away from Mr Winterkorn – avoiding Mr Winterkorn’s eyes.
Wall Street Journal reported, that Suzuki and Volkswagen would negotiate details of their “comprehensive partnership” sometime later weeks or months after the announcement. We now know that these negotiations did not lead anywhere, and were never concluded.
Reuters reports that at the press conference VW CEO Martin Winterkorn focused on his plan to overtake Toyota as the global No. 1 carmaker in 2018 or earlier, Suzuki being obviously meant as a step to achieve this target to overtake Toyota and become No. 1 globally. According to Reuters, Volkswagen sold 3.265 million cars in the first half of 2009, and Suzuki sold 1.15 million – if combined, if Suzuki would become Volkswagen’s subsidiary, this would be 4.42 million compared to Toyota’s 3.564 million.
Suzuki Motor Corp. CEO Osamu Suzuki is reported by Reuters to have emphasized that he wanted to clear up any misunderstanding: he definitely did not want Suzuki to become a 12th brand for Volkswagen, and he does not want other people to tell him what to do – in reply to the question if he could see a German CEO for Suzuki Motor Corporation.
Suzuki Volkswagen alliance
Suzuki Volkswagen alliance time line
9 Dec 2009: VW-CEO Martin Winterkorn and Suzuki-CEO Osamu Suzuki announced the “comprehensive partnership” at a press conference in Tokyo
9 Dec 2009: Suzuki transferred 107,950,000 treasury shares to Volkswagen AG, valued approx at 226,695,000,000 yen (= approx. US$ 2.3 billion)
Suzuki acquired a 2.5% voting stake in Volkswagen for US$ 1.13 billion
15 Jan 2010: VW purchased 19.89% of Suzuki shares for about € 1.7 billion
Sept 2011: Suzuki’s Board decides to terminate the partnership
18 Nov 2011: Suzuki gives notice to Volkswagen of termination of partnership, Volkswagen does not reply
24 Nov 2011: Suzuki files for arbitration at International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in London
30 Aug 2015: ICC Arbitration Court issues judgement and holds the termination of the partnership valid, orders VW to sell all Suzuki shares back to Suzuki, and orders Suzuki to pay damages for breaking the agreement
17 Sep 2015 8:45am: Suzuki purchases back 119,787,000 of its own shares previously owned by VW back via Tokyo Stock Exchange ToSTNeT-3 system for 460,281,547,500 yen (approx. US$ 3.9 billion)
26 Sep 2015: Suzuki announced the transaction to sell all 4,397,000 Volkswagen shares which Suzuki owns to Porsche Automobile Holding SE, completing the termination of the partnership and capital alliance with VW
No common language, colliding expectations and no “meeting of minds”
Much has been reported in the press about what went wrong with the Suzuki-Volkswagen alliance, and both parties obviously have a very different understanding of the development, and both sides will feel obliged to maintain confidentiality. The ICC arbitration is also confidential. Therefore it will be hard to establish the precise facts.
However, it is obvious, that from the start there was no “meeting of minds”.
Expectations were very different and on collision, and obviously were never discussed openly between VW and Suzuki at CEO level. Even if they had wanted to, without any common language any direct communication was impossible anyway between CEOs.
Suzuki apparently hoped to receive technology from Volkswagen, Suzuki is reported to have hoped for personnel support, workers from Volkswagen (?) – it is not clear to this author what Suzuki was planning to give in return. Suzuki apparently gave up on the hope to obtain Diesel engines from Volkswagen and in the end did so from Fiat, which Volkswagen claimed to be an infringement of the cooperation agreement, a view which seems to have been maintained by the ICC arbitrators.
It is obvious, that Volkswagen was aiming to acquire increasing stakes of Suzuki, and was aiming to make Suzuki a subsidiary under Volkswagen control. Volkswagen was particularly interested in Suzuki’s market position in India via Maruti Suzuki India Limited, and by Suzuki’s know-how in designing and producing cost-efficient small sized vehicles. Again its unclear what Volkswagen planned to give in return.
Reportedly, Volkswagen demanded to increase the holding of Suzuki shares to 33% to “facilitate technology transfer”.
In September 2011, Suzuki Motors’ Board of Directors decided to terminate the cooperation with VW, making Suzuki Volkswagen divorce unavoidable.
On 18 Nov 2011 Suzuki gave notice to Volkswagen of termination of the partnership, and asked for return of the Suzuki shares. Volkswagen held on to the Suzuki shares for the time being.
On 1 July 2011, Suzuki-CEO Osamu Suzuki chose to inform the world in great detail about his opinion and decisions about the relationship between Suzuki and “Wagen” (ワーゲン). This article is entitled “スズキとワーゲンの今とこれから （鈴木修氏の経営者ブログ）” (english translation: “Suzuki and Wagen now and the way forward” (Osamu Suzuki’s management blog)). Osamu Suzuki’s blog can be read here (may need Nikkei subscription).
Clearly, calling Volkswagen “Wagen” and “Wagen-san” already expresses Osamu Suzuki’s frustrations very clearly. We are not sure, but most likely Volkswagen CEO and top management probably read this blog a few days later once it was translated by VW’s Japanese staff.
With this blog article it was unmistakably clear to the world that the Suzuki-“Wagen” cooperation had been broken down without any possibility for repair, and makes the Suzuki Volkswagen divorce public.
Professor Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, Director of the Center for Automotive Research at the University Duisburg-Essen according to Bloomberg, summarized: “Mr Suzuki didn’t want to be a Volkswagen employee, and that’s understandable”.
In the same article, Der Spiegel reports that in an unnamed VW Executive’s opinion, future acquisition of a majority of shares of Suzuki by VW has been agreed since the beginning of the negotiations: clearly exactly the opposite of Suzuki-CEO Osamu Suzuki’s public statements – pointing to a huge misunderstanding between both CEOs.
On 30 August 2015, Suzuki announced details of the arbitration in London and its result in a press notice.
According to Suzuki, Suzuki requested VW to terminate the alliance and the capital relationship, but VW apparently did not respond. Therefore, Suzuki gave notice on 18 Nov 2011 of the termination, and on 24 Nov 2011 Suzuki filed for arbitration with the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). Suzuki asked for termination of the agreement with VW, and to rule that VW should sell all Suzuki shares either directly to Suzuki, or to a third party determined by Suzuki.
One 30 August 2015, the ICC ruled:
Termination of Suzuki-VW Framework Agreement: Suzuki’s termination notice of 18 Nov 2011 is valid, and the alliance therefore ended on 18 May 2012.
Divestment of shares in Suzuki: VW must sell all shares of Suzuki either direct to Suzuki or to a third party nominated by Suzuki
Suzuki’s breaches of agreement: IIC found that Suzuki violated some parts of the Framework Agreement, and that damages to be paid by Suzuki to Volkswagen will be determined later.
Lessons to learn from the Suzuki Volkswagen divorce: communication & respect
“Comprehensive partnership” without meeting of minds does not work
Partnerships are hard when CEOs on both sides don’t have any language in common, thus can’t talk to each other
Hidden agendas destroy trust
Without trust partnerships don’t work
Processes and methods (e.g. acquisitions of minor players all over Europe) successful in Europe often don’t work in Japan
Partnerships without respect both ways don’t work
Renault and Carlos Ghosn show us how to build a Japanese-European car company alliance, Daimler (with Mitsubishi Motors) and Volkswagen (with Suzuki) show us how it does not work
Suzuki Volkswagen alliance: financial aspects
Volkswagen reportedly paid Suzuki 222.5 billion yen (= approx. US$ 2.5 billion) for 19.89% of Suzuki’s shares
Suzuki acquired a 2.5% voting stake in Volkswagen for US$ 1.13 billion
On December 9, 2009, Suzuki transferred 107,950,000 treasury shares to Volkswagen AG, valued approximately at 226,695,000,000 yen (= approx. US$ 2.3 billion)
On June 3, 2010, Suzuki announced the offer of additional shares to be issued by third-party allotment to Volkswagen AG to bring Volkswagen’s share up to 19.89% as follows:
3,660,000 newly issued shares
issue price 1755 yen per share
total proceeds = 6,423,300,000 yen (= approx. US$ 64 million)
Suzuki announced to use the funds received from Volkswagen as follows:
122,484 million yen (= approx. US$ 1.2 billion) for Research and development expenses focusing on environmentally friendly, next generation technology for automobiles
100,000 million yen (= approx. US$ 1 billion) Reduction of interest-bearing liabilities to improve financial position (corresponding roughly to the purchase costs of Suzuki’s 2.5% stake in Volkswagen)
Suzuki Volkswagen divorce: financial aspects
On September 17, 2015, Suzuki announced the acquisition of treasury shares in order to acquire the shares in Suzuki held by Volkswagen AG:
Suzuki acquired 119,787,000 Suzuki common stock shares
Total amount paid: 460,281,547,500 yen (US$ 3.9 billion)
Suzuki has more than 1 Trillion yen (US$ 8.3 billion) in cash, and paid for the share purchase in cash from cash reserves.
Volkswagen had informed Suzuki to have sold 111,610,000 shares corresponding to 19.89% of voting shares, corresponding to approx. 463 billion yen ($3.8 billion).
On September 26, 2015, Suzuki announced the sale of all 4,397,000 Volkswagen voting shares Suzuki owned to Porsche Automobile Holding SE
Suzuki sold 4,397,000 Volkswagen voting shares to Porsche Automotive Holding SE
Suzuki did not announce the sales value. At VW’s current (27 Sept 2015) share price of € 115.82, the total sale revenue is expected to be approximately € 509 million (= approx. US$ 570 million)
Completion of sale: Sept 30, 2015
Suzuki reports an extraordinary profit of YEN 36.7 billion (= approx US$ 304 million) on this sale.
Ignoring transaction costs, interest, opportunity cost, arbitration and legal fees etc. the balance looks as follows:
Volkswagen purchased the 19.89% stake in Suzuki for approx. US$ 2.5 billion and sold the same stake for approx. $3.8 billion, i.e. making approx. US$ 1.3 billion profit
Suzuki sold its 19.89% shares to Volkswagen for approx. US$ 2.5 billion, and now repurchased the same shares for approx. $3.8 billion. In parallel, Suzuki purchased 2.5% of Volkswagen voting shares for approx. US$ 1.13 billion. Thus Suzuki overall, theoretically, made a small loss of approx. US$ 30 million on these transactions plus may have to pay damages to VW for breach of contract to be determined later by ICC.
Purely financially, Volkswagen made approx. US$ 1.3 billion profit on this transaction, while Suzuki came out more or less unchanged except for the damages Suzuki may have to pay to Volkswagen.
Suzuki Motor Corporation (スズキ株式会社) – slogan: “Small Cars for a Big Future”
In FY2014, Suzuki sold 750,000 cars in Japan and 1,170,000 cars in India
Suzuki Motor Corporation (スズキ株式会社) was founded by Michio Suzuki (鈴木道雄) (18 Feb 1887 – 27 Oct 1982) in October 1909 as Suzuki Type Machine Manufacturing Workshops (鈴木式織機製作所) in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka-ken.
On 15 March 1920 Suzuki-type Machine KK (鈴木式織機株式会社) was founded, and renamed to Suzuki Motor Engineering KK (鈴木自動車工業株式会社) in June 1954. In October 1990, the company was renamed to today’s name: Suzuki Motor Co Ltd (スズキ株式会社).
Suzuki’s international business includes:
Maruti Suzuki India Limited (マルチ・スズキ・インディア)
Magyar Suzuki Corporation (マジャールスズキ)
Changan Suzuki (長安スズキ)
P.T. Suzuki Indomobil Motor (スズキ・インドモービル・モーター)
In FY2014, Suzuki sold:
750,000 cars in Japan
1,170,000 cars in India
however, in 2012 decided to end car sales in the USA
Maruti Suzuki India Limited (マルチ・スズキ・インディア) – slogan: “Way of Life!”
Sanjay Gandhi first tried to cooperate with Volkswagen, cooperation attempts with Volkswagen failed, leading to cooperation with Suzuki
On 16 Nov 1970, the company ‘Maruti technical services private limited’ (MTSPL) was founded by the Indian Government to lay the foundation for an Indian automotive industry, and Sanjay Gandhi was the first CEO.
Sanjay Gandhi contacted Volkswagen AG to seek a cooperation or joint-venture to produce an Indian version of the VW Käfer (Beatle). However, a cooperation with Volkswagen did not work out. The company failed in 1977, and was reborn as Maruti Udyog Ltd by Dr V. Krishnamurthy.
In 1982, Maruti Udyog Ltd and Suzuki entered into a licensing and joint venture agreement, which has developed very well into India’s largest automotive company: today’s Maruti Suzuki India Limited (マルチ・スズキ・インディア).
publicly traded (BSE: 532500, NSE: MARUTI)
Market capitalization: 1.33 trillion Indian Rupees (US$ 20.23 billion) (as of Sept 18, 2015)
Market share in India: approx. 37% (2012) – 45% (2014) of India’s passenger car market (45% for 2014 according to Nikkei Business Online)
6900 employees
Suzuki ownership: increased from 26% to 40% in 1987, increased to 50% in 1992. Currently Suzuki owns 54% of Maruti Suzuki.
Hitachi received orders for 866 Intercity Express Program (IEP) carriages and for 234 carriages for Abellio’s ScotRail program, following 174 “Javelin” carriages
Hitachi Rail putting competitive pressure on Europe’s rail established rail manufacturers: Hitachi Rail has “on time delivery” at the top of the list of commitments to customers
Earlier in 2004, Hitachi received an order for 29 6-car high-speed Class 395 “Javelin” trains (a total of 174 carriages), which went into regular service on 30 December 2009 on the Integrated Kent Franchise, between London St. Pancras Station and Ashford International Station, traveling this approx. 100km distance in 37 minutes, an average speed of 162 km/h.
For a background of the international business aspects of Hitachi, read an essay by the emeritus Chairman of Hitachi Europe, and emeritus Board Member of Hitachi Ltd. Sir Stephen Gomersall.
Hitachi Rail to challenge European rail manufacturers Siemens and Alstom
Europe is one of the world’s biggest rail markets, and has a number of established rail manufacturers including:
There has been a series of recent problems in Europe’s established rail industries, which may have contributed to Hitachi’s considerable business success in Europe:
the failed and abandoned Fyra high-speed service between Amsterdam and Brussels using AnsaldoBreda V250 trains, which resulted in an avalanche of legal issues between the Governments, the rail operators, and the train manufacturers.
Rail in Europe and in Japan are very very different stories
European rail services are predominantly owned, operated and controlled by Government agencies, and to some extent operations are contracted out for limited periods to private service operators, almost none of Europe’s rail services are fully privately owned and operated – a rare and very successful exception is the Jungfraubahn mountain railway.
Rail services in Japan on the other hand are largely owned and operated by a large number of private railways companies, most of which are very successful and profitable and growing and listed on the stock exchange.
Thus Hitachi Rail is used to satisfying the tough needs of very competitive and privately owned commercial rail operators, while Europe’s rail manufacturers to a large extent sell to Government controlled agencies, or directly to Governments, or under Government programs, such as UK’s Intercity Express Programme (IEP).
The Hitachi investment in context: maybe we see a shift in investment value from traditional manufacturing to intellectual business such as insurance and pharmaceutical research
Compare Hitachi’s £82 million (= approx US$ 130 million) with the recent acquisition of UK insurance company Amlin by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company for £2.5 billion (approx. US$ 3.85 billion or ¥642 billion), or the acquisition of Cambridge/UK Heptares Therapeutics Ltd by the Japanese Sosei Group for US$ 400 million (US$ 180 million in cash plus up to US$ 220 million in incentives).
Of course we are comparing apples and oranges here, and the overall Intercity Express Programme (IEP) is on the order of £ 5.8 billion ($ 10 billion), but we may witness here a shift of investment value from traditional manufacturing to intellectual business such as insurance and pharmaceutical research here.
More about Japan’s electronics and electrical machinery industries
Report on Japan’s electronics industry sector (approx. 237 pages, pdf file)
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company acquires Amlin for 2.5 billion pounds (approx. US$ 3.85 billion or ¥642 billion)
On Tuesday, September 8, 2015, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company announced the planned acquisition of London based insurer Amlin plc for 2.5 billion pounds (approx. US$ 3.85 billion or ¥642 billion).
Since Amlin plc is traded on the London Stock Exchange, the acquisition process needs to follow a precisely defined process.
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company offered to acquire 100% of shares (517,658,935 shares), offering 670 pence per common share.
The acquisition is expected to close between January and March 2016.
There has been a string of acquisitions in Europe by Japanese insurance companies, which you can find in our Japan to EU M&A register. Some examples are:
In addition, all major Japanese insurers are also active on London’s Lloyds Insurance market, and in other ways in Europe. And these deals are in addition to the acquisition of StanCorp Financial Group by Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance for US$ 5 billion, and HCC Insurance for US$ 7.5 billion by Tokyo Marine.
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company was founded on October 21, 1918, and has about 14,859 employees on non-consolidate basis.
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (Code: 8725), but was delisted on March 26, 2008, and became a 100% owned subsidiary of MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings KK, which was founded on April 1, 2008, and which assumed the Stock Exchange Code 8725.
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company’s history goes back to 1893, when the Osaka Insurance Company was established.
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group Holdings, Inc.
The Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group Holdings, Inc. was founded on April 1, 2008.
On April 1, 2010, The Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group Holdings, Inc. was merged with Aioi Insurance and with Nissay Dowa General Insurance Co., Ltd., and the resulting group was renamed: MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings KK.
Nikkei won the race. Axel Springer withdrew. £ 94 million made the difference.
by Gerhard Fasol
On July 23, 2015 at 15:13 (3:13 pm) British Summer Time, Pearson and Nihon Keizai Shinbun Corporation announced the sale of the Financial Times Newspaper to Nihon Keizai Shinbun Corporation for £ 844 million (approx. US$ 1.3 billion) – sending shock waves around the global news industry.
FT: £ 94 million made the difference.
The Financial Times reported that Germany’s Axel Springer Verlag had offered £ 750 million in cash, but within the last 5 weeks Nihon Keizai Shinbun Corporation (Nikkei) quickly closed the acquisition with a 12% higher cash offer of £ 844 million, while Axel Springer withdrew. So it seems that in the end £ 94 million made the difference.
As a privately held company, Nihon Keizai Shinbun Corporation can act faster, and has far less constraints than the publicly traded Axel Springer Corporation.
Clearly in the best case, this acquisition will help Nikkei Inc to globalize and to bring Japan’s financial news and scoops via Financial Times to Western audiences, and vice-versa, and help both to learn from each other to speed up and expand the transition from paper to new digital business models.
Cultural issues and language issues: for effective cooperation, Financial Times leaders will need to learn Japanese and/or Nihon Keizai Shinbun leaders will need to learn much more English….
Writing news is an intensely intellectual activity. There will be interactions between Nikkei’s almost 100% Japanese reporters and Financial Times’ much more diverse creators. Given that almost zero of Financial Times’s staff speak any Japanese, and that knowledge of English language by Nikkei’s creators and editors is extremely limited, these interactions will be necessarily very limited, and will need intense efforts to expand. As you know, learning Japanese for Western people, and learning English for Japanese people is extremely difficult, especially at the level of writing compelling news to short deadlines and for some of the world’s most clever and demanding audiences – who are always able to defect to a Bloomberg terminal or to a news startup – or from this autumn to Apple-News.
Success of this acquisition is possible and could bring great benefits, but is by no means guaranteed.
Much has been written about editorial independence, separation of content creation vs advertising, and differences in editorial style and aggressive reporting between Financial Times’ aggressive London style vs Nikkei’s more obedient Tokyo style. Surely both can learn from each other!
Note also that the acquisition is subject to “regulatory approval”, and this may well impose conditions on the acquisition.
Another issues of course is, who did NOT acquire the Financial Times: Bloomberg seems to have not been involved, and Axel Springer seems to have withdrawn.
It has been reported, that Pearson is currently also in the process of selling Pearson’s shares in the iconic Economist Group. Following the Financial Times acquisition by Nikkei which has been conducted low profile, we can expect much more participation in a potential Economist sale.
Pearson only owns 50% of The Economist, the remainder is owned by Families (Cadbury, Rothschild, Schroder, Agnelli and others) and Economist staff and former staff.
The Economist is governed by:
Trustees:
Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone
Lord O’Donnell
Tim Clark
Bryan Sanderson
Board of Directors of 12 people
Therefore The Economist’s government structure enables The Economist’s independence, and acquiring Pearson’s 50% will not allow control of The Economist in the way acquiring 100% of Financial Times does.
How big is Nikkei? 6 times larger circulation than Financial Times! Larger than New York Times + Wall Street Journal combined!
Nihon Keizai Shinbun (Nikkei) has substantially larger distribution than Wall Street Journal, New York Times or Financial Times
Japan’s media sector is very very large, and so is Nihon Keizai Shinbun Corporation.
Nihon Keizai Shinbun Corporation is best known in the west for the NIKKEI index, however this is only a very small part of Nihon Keizai Shinbun Corporation. At the core of Nihon Keizai Shinbun Corporation (Nikkei Inc) is the Nihon Keizai Shinbun (= Japan Economics Newspaper, Nikkei), which appears twice daily, and in terms of circulation is very much larger than New York Times, Wall Street Journal or Financial Times:
Circulation
Nikkei: 2.77 million (morning) + 1.39 million (evening) + 0.43 million (digital) = 4.59 million
WSJ: 1.463 million (paper) + 0.734 million (digital) = 2.2 million
NYT: 0.868 million (paper) + 0.91 million (digital) = 1.8 million
FT: .225 million (paper) + .504 million (digital) = 0.73 million
Thus, Nikkei’s circulation is larger than WSJ + NYT combined, or more than 6 times larger than Financial Times’.
However, Nikkei is clearly behind in the transition from paper to digital.
Financial Times, 1/4 the size of the Nikkei Corporation in terms of sales
The Financial Times was founded on January 9, 1888.
Financial Times Group sales have increased from around £ 400 million (approx. US$ 620 million) in 2010 to around £ 450 million (approx. US$ 700 million) in FY 2013.
Nihon Keizai Shinbun Corporation (株式会社日本経済新聞社, Nikkei Inc.) was founded on August 11, 1911, but goes back to the newspaper ChuugaiBukkaShinpou (中外物価新報) which started on January 27, 1889, almost exactly one year after the Financial Times was founded.
Nihon Keizai Shinbun Corporation has the Nihon Keizai Shinbun (日本経済新聞) as its core, but owns and operates a very large number of other publishing and media businesses, including also a 31.46% holding in Televi Tokyo Holdings, one of Japan’s major TV based media groups.
Consolidated revenues: YEN 300.6 billion (US$ 2.4 billion) (FY2014)
Operating income: YEN 16.7 billion (US$ 0.135 billion) (FY2014)
Net income: YEN 10.26 billion (US$ 0.08 billion) (FY2014)
Employees: 7319 (Dec 31, 2014)
You need to understand Japan’s huge media industry sector?
Read our report on Japan’s Media (approx. 200 pages, pdf file)
TOSHIBA sells KONE holding – fall-out from Toshiba’s accounting issues
Toshiba
TOSHIBA sells KONE holding: In the wake of Toshiba’s accounting issues, Toshiba announced the sale of its 24,186,720 shares, corresponding to a 4.6% holding in Finnish elevator company KONE for EURO 864.7 million (YEN 118 billion, US$ 0.95 billion).
TELC has sales of approx. YEN 120 billion (US$ 1.2 billion) per year, and employs about 4700 people.
KONE
KONE was founded in 1910. KONE’s annual sales are on the order of EURO 7 billion, and KONE employs about 47,000 people. KONE’s shares are listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Exchange.
acquired London based virtual fitting room mannequin venture Fits.me
Rakuten, Japan’s largest e-commerce + e-finance group, is acquiring many companies around the world both to acquire technology, and to acquire e-commerce capabilities outside Japan in order to globalize. Find some of Rakuten’s recent acquisitions in Europe listed here: http://eu-japan.com/?s=rakuten
On July 13, 2015 Rakuten acquired London based virtual fitting room venture fits.me, both to acquire technology and we assume, also to contribute to Rakuten’s globalization.
Fits.me – virtual fitting room, robot mannequins, and fit advisor
Fits.me was founded in 2010 by two Estonian friends, Paul Pällin and Heikki Haldre, in Estonia, and in 2012 the company moved its headquarters to London.
Fits.me helps consumers visualize how they might look like dressed with clothes from an e-commerce site, and turning around, Fits.me allows e-retailers to collect data about their potential customers.
Fits.me offers a number of service versions ranging from “virtual fitting rooms” to “fit advisors”.
Once the customers has entered his/her body dimensions, weight and other data, Fits.me’s web mannequins represent the customer’s body dimensions, and show how selected clothing would look like on a web mannequin with the customer’s body data.
Fits.me received US$ 14.3 million in founding in three rounds:
Seed: US$ 1.8 million (Sept 22, 2010)
Estonian Development Fund
Series A: US$ 7.2 million (April 17, 2013)
Conor Venture Partners
Entrepreneurs Fund
Fostergate Holdings
SmartCap AS
Venture: US$ 5.3 million (Oct 24, 2014)
Entrepreneurs Fund
SmartCap AS
James B Gambrell
Total = US$ 14.3 million
Rakuten
Rakuten was founded by Hiroshi Mikitani, and is Japan’s leading e-commerce and e-finance company developing a global footprint through a long series of acquisitions around the globe. Find some of Rakuten’s recent acquisitions in Europe listed here: http://eu-japan.com/?s=rakuten
Recruit expands from classified-type magazine sites into education
On April 1, 2015, Japanese media giant Recruit acquired London based but largely Japanese managed EdTech venture Quipper for US$ 39 million, providing good returns for three investors, Atomico, Benesse and Globis Capital Partners, who had invested a total of US$ 10.1 million over the period 2011-2014.
Quipper represents a new class of global ventures: largely Japanese entrepreneurs and managers founded a venture in London, taking advantage of London’s global business and venture platform, and especially UK’s very strong education infrastructure and education industry, and developing global EdTech business.
Quipper
Quipper is an EdTech venture developing and marketing quiz based e-learning apps platform for smartphones.
Learning content is provided by teachers, experts, publishing houses, teachers and others.
Founded on December 1, 2010 in London (UK).
US$ 10.1 million funding was invested by three investors in three stages:
Seed, Oct 1, 2011: £ 0.4 million by Atomico
Series A, May 18, 2012: £ 2.3 million by Globis Capital Partners and Atomico
Series A, March 6, 2014: $5.8 million by Atomico and Benesse
Total: US$ 10.1 million
Current Quipper team is predominantly Japanese:
Masayuki Watanabe (渡辺雅之), CEO
Masatomo Nakano, CTO
Takuya Nomma, Marketing Director
Yosuke Arakaki, Yuta Funase, Joseph Ganderson, Ryan Guerrero, Yusuke Kaneko, Takeyoshi Mizusawa, Satoru Tanabe, Mai Ueno, Annette Tsuda, Business Development
Recruit
Recruit is a Japanese media company with its own original innovative business model. Recruit started with job advertising magazines, and has developed a wide range of advertising platforms for job search, weddings, used cars, and many other areas. Find a description and analysis of Recruit in our Japan Media Report.
Nidec acquires German pump manufacturer Geräte- und Pumpenbau GmbH Dr. Eugen Schmidt via the subsidiary Nidec Motors & Actuators (Germany) GmbH (“NMA(G)”) on February 2, 2015.
Geräte- und Pumpenbau GmbH Dr. Eugen Schmidt and subsidiaries have been renamed:
Nidec continues acquisitions in Europe in the motor and electrical equipment sector
Nidec: “for everything that spins and moves”
Nidec acquired the Italian electrical machinery construction and repair company Motortecnica s.r.l. on May 15, 2015 via its Italian subsidiary Nidec ASI S.p.A. (formerly, Ansaldo Sistemi Industriali S.p.A), which Nidec had acquired in May 2012.
Motortecnica s.r.l.
Motortecnica was established in 1989 in Salerno (Italy) by Antonio Iorio for the repair of electrical machines. Motortecnica has 77 employees and € 11 million in revenues for the fiscal year ending with December 31, 2014.
Motortecnica is focused on:
planning and production of electric machines such as motors and generators
construction of electric machine parts: stator coils, rotor coils, connections, whole rotors, whole stators
machining
diagnostics and repair of electric machines
Motortecnica moved to new headquarters in September 2013 workshops and factory includes:
Automatic brazing machine MPM 3000
CNC Machining units
Vertical lathes
Electric furnaces
Cut and skin
Impulse generators
Automatic Meter Zeiss
Alternating voltage generator 50 kV – 200 kVA
Ridgway Taping machine
Stator coil spindle-moulding machine
Roebel Transposition press
Instrumentation
Thermopresse
Laser cutter
Waterjet
Balancing machines maximum 30 tons
Motortecnica invests in equipment, technology and production and maintenance:
2008: € 1 million
2009: € 2 million
2010: € 2.5 million
2011: € 1.5 million
2012: € 1 million
2013: € 2 million
2014: € 1.2 million
Nidec ASI S.p.A. (formerly, Ansaldo Sistemi Industriali S.p.A)
industrial system automation and service with focus on the oil & gas, metals, renewable energy, marine and general industry sectors
nidec (日本電産株式会社)
Nidec was founded in 1944 in Kyoto by Nagamori Shigenobu, and produces motors, machinery, optical parts, camera shutters and other electro-mechanical equipment.
Read our report on Japan’s electronics industry sector to learn more about NIDEC and its place in Japan’s electronics industry sector:
The GROHE Group owns 72.3% of Joyou AG, thus Joyou AG became a LIXIL subsidiary in January 2014. Joyou AG had an IPO at the Frankfurter Stock Exchange in 2010.
Joyou AG recently filed for bankruptcy, and on June 3, 2015, LIXIL announced a restatement of accounts and projections, reducing income statements.
LIXIL announced income reductions due to the Joyou AG bankruptcy filing:
FY 2013 (ending March 31, 2014) net income reduced by: YEN 23.8 billion (US$ 191 million)
FY 2014 (ending March 31, 2015) net income reduced by: YEN 9.4 billion (US$ 76 million)
FY 2015 (ending March 31, 2016) net income reduced by: YEN 33 billion (US$ 26.5 million)
Total net income reductions (net losses): YEN 66.2 billion (US$ 532 million)
LIXIL plans to increase international business to half of its sales, and these losses represent a setback for LIXIL’s globalization plans – one of Japan’s new companies striving to overcome Japan’s “Galapagos effect”.
LIXIL
Lixil Corporation (“Link to Good Living”), TSE-Code 5938, manufactures building materials and housing equipment and operates home and home building centers.
LIXIL was formed on April 1, 2011 by the merger of:
Tostem Corporation
Inax Corporation
Shin Nikkei Company, Ltd.
Toyo Exterior Co., Ltd.
Sun Wave Corporation
and has been growing aggressively through acquisitions with the target to achieve 50% sales internationally outside Japan. In particular, jointly with the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) LIXIL acquired a 87.5% stake in the German GROHE Group in 2013, the American Standard Brands (ABS), and the Permasteelisa Group of Italy.
To become global leaders in building materials and housing equipment, LIXIL has recently acquired:
American Standard Brands (ABS), in August 2013 for US$ 542 million
On June 1, 2015, SoftBank announced an investment to increase the ownership of Supercell stock from 50.5% to 73.2% on a fully diluted basis. This transaction had closed on May 29, 2015.
While Softbank did not officially disclose details of this transaction, VentureBeat/GamesBeat reported that SoftBank this time paid US$ 1.2 billion for this additional 22.7% of ownership. Thus by dividing US$ 1.2 billion by 22.7% we can calculate a market value of US$ 5.3 billion.
Supercell is reported to have achieved revenues of US$ 1.7 billion and income of US$ 0.5 billion in 2014.
Currently Clash of Clans is ranked No. 7 top grossing app in Japan’s iOS app store, and No. 6 in the Games category (source: Apple App Store ranking).
According to AppAnnie, on June 1, 2015, Supercell’s games Clash of Clans, Hay Day and Boom Beach were ranked as the No. 1 top grossing games for iPad in 149, 128 and 112 countries respectively.
Learn about Japan’s game makers and markets – our report
Transition from analog printing to digital printing drove coding and marking printer Domino to partner with a stronger company
Domino valued at 1.03 billion pounds (US$ 1.5 billion)
97% of today’s printing is analog, however there is a transition now to digital printing. Domino Printing Sciences is specialized on analog printing and now transitioning to digital printing, and needed a financially stronger partner to support increasing R&D costs and to finance expansion into the rapidly growing digital printing markets.
Brother Industries announced its intention to acquire publicly traded Domino Printing Sciences plc following the acquisition process prescribed in the UK for a total of around 1.03 billion pounds.
Domino Printing Sciences plc. “Domino. Do more.”
Domino Printing Sciences plc was founded as a spin-out from Cambridge Consultants in 1978 by Graeme Minto in Cambridge, UK, building on continuous inkjet printing technology (CIJ), and today has about 2300 employees and annual revenues of UKL 350 million (= US$ 526 million).
Domino explains its business in a series of infographics on Pin-it:
Brother Industries (ブラザー工業株式会社) was originally founded in 1908 as Yasui Sewing Machine Shoukai (安井ミシン商会) by Kanekichi Yasui (安井兼吉) as a producer of sewing machines. Today’s Chairman Yoshiro Yasui is a descendant of the founder.
On January 15, 1934, Nihon Sewing Machine Production KK (日本ミシン製造株式会社) was established, which was renamed Brother Industries KK (ブラザー工業株式会社) in 1962.
Currently (FY2014) Brother Industries has consolidated annual revenues of YEN 616 Billion (=US$ 5.2 billion), and it’s market capitalization as of April 22, 2015 is YEN 524 billion (US$ 4.4 billion).
Brother Industries is in the following main business areas:
On April 20, 2015 Dentsu announced another investment in its quest to strengthen its global footprint and to strengthen capabilities in mobile and digital: Dentsu acquires Israeli digital performance agency abaGada Internet Ltd..
abaGada Internet Ltd. – performance marketing: “Building your online marketing strategy to deliver outstanding results”
abaGada Internet Ltd. was founded by current CEO, Eval Chen, in May 2010 in Tel Aviv, Israel, and employs about 22 people.
Revenues were about UKL 3.5 million in the year ended December 2014.
abaGada performs search engine marketing (SEM) to increase customers’ website traffic, analysis of customer and user behavior.
Dentsu plans to rebrand and integrate abaGada into Dentsu’s iProspect brand.
abaGada as Dentsu’s technology hub in Israel
Many large global corporations have operations in Israel to link into Israeli’s legendary innovative strengths. Israel’s technology strength and attraction for Japanese corporations was recently visualized at a series of events in Tokyo, e.g. The Israeli Venture Fund meeting in Tokyo on March 4, 2014.
With the acquisition of abaGada, Densu now also has an antenna into Israel’s innovations.
Dentsu and Dentsu-Aegis
Dentsu dominates Japan’s advertising space, and is a very very strong force in Japan’s media industry sector, through control and management of major advertising channels with an overwhelming market share in Japan, and has been working hard to leverage its creative power and strength in Japan into a larger global footprint.
Nippon Life Insurance (日本生命保険相互会社) acquires 1% of stock of AXA Life Insurance
Nippon Life Insurance and AXA to jointly offer health insurance product Medi-AxN
Nippon Life Insurance (日本生命保険相互会社) and AXA Life Insurance announced a partnership, and Nippon Life intends to acquire 1% of outstanding shares of AXA Life Insurance to develop a long-term partnership.
Currently AXA’s market capitalization is US$ 62 billion, therefore Nippon Life’s 1% investment in AXA corresponds to about US$ 0.62 billion.
Nippon Life Insurance and AXA are planning to jointly market the health insurance product Medi-AxN (メディ・アン).
Nippon Life Insurance (日本生命保険相互会社) was founded on July 4, 1889, is based on Osaka, and has a total of 70,806 employees (of which 18,481 are in-house employees).
Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Holdings Inc is traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (Stock Code 8639), and current market capitalization is approx. YEN 1650 billion (= approx. US$ 14 billion)
In December 2014, LINE and Microsoft announced that LINE will acquire the streaming music service MixRadio from Microsoft.
LINE already operates a Japan-only streaming music service “LINE Music”. Since music licensing is largely country or region specific, with this acquisition, LINE can develop global streaming music services building on existing licenses.
The service was developed as “NOKIA comes with Music” by NOKIA in 2007, a streaming music service which was built into certain NOKIA phones. Over the years, NOKIA also used the product names Nokia Music, Nokia Music Store and OVI Music Store for this streaming music service.
With the acquisition of NOKIA’s handset unit by Microsoft, the company became part of Microsoft, and Microsoft changed the name to “MixRadio”.
The company operates currently in 31 countries, and has a catalogue of about 36 million songs using the MP3 file format without Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection.
Competitors are Spotify and others.
Headquarters are in Bristol, UK, current CEO is Jyrki Rosenberg.
LINE Corporation
LINE Corporation is a Japanese/Korean messaging group, which is also the No. 1 top grossing global iOS and Android app provider.
For detailed discussion, see Japan game market report (398 pages, pdf-file):
On March 11, 2015 Dentsu announced another investment in its quest to strengthen its global footprint and to strengthen capabilities in mobile and digital: Dentsu acquires 80% of Greek leading independent digital agency Mindworks, and plans to integrate Mindworks into Dentsu’s Isobar and iProspect networks.
Dentsu has also acquired options to acquire the remaining 20% of Mindworks by 2017.
Mindworks – “the fastest growing digital agency in Greece”
Mindworks was founded in 2003, acquired by Atcom in 2009, and became an independent company again in January 2015.
As a division of Atcom, in the financial year ending December 2014, Mindworks had revenues of EURO 7.3 million. Mindworks has about 60 employees.
Mindworks – to be renamed Isobar-iProspect Advertising Services SA
Mindworks will be renamed Isobar-iProspect Advertising Services SA, and will be integrated into Dentsu’s global Isobar and iProspect brands, representing Isobar’s and iProspect’s entry into Greece’s markets.
Dentsu and Dentsu-Aegis
Dentsu dominates Japan’s advertising space, and is a very very strong force in Japan’s media industry sector, through control and management of major advertising channels with an overwhelming market share in Japan, and has been working hard to leverage its creative power and strength in Japan into a larger global footprint.
