According to the Mergers and Acquisitions Research Report (March 2008), the number of mergers and acquisitions in Japan was less than 1,000 transactions per year before the late nineties. From the late nineties, though, the number of Japanese M&As increased rapidly, exceeding 1,000 transactions per year in 1999 and 2,000 transactions per year in 2004. Since 2004 the number has remained at the high level of approximately 2,700 transactions per year, which represents a 360% increase on the number of transactions in 1997.
The following trends in Japanese M&A activity are worth noting and we discuss them below: (i) the prevalence of hostile takeover attempts, (ii) the increased number of management buyouts (MBOs), (iii) the increased number of M&As initiated by buy-out funds, and (iv) the introduction of new methods to structure M&As, made possible by amendments of Japanese law....