Goldman Sachs offer to buy Seibu Railways for 8.5 B$

Goldman Sachs offers to buy Seibu Railways for 8.5 Billion $(900 BYen)
Goldman Sachs a major player in purchasing distressed assets, real estate and leisure activities is very interested in Seibu real estate and leisure facilities holdings. It is said that Seibu owns around 15,000 hectares of land and 170 leisure facilities including golf courses for which GS is a major player. This would be the biggest acquisition by a foreign group in Japan.
By Eric Perraudin http://www.japanconsult.com/

Land price continue to fall in Japan except for Central Tokyo

According to Japanese government land prices fell for the 14th consecutive year in Japan: Residential land prices across Japan decreased an average of 4.6% in 2003, continuing the trend of a 5.7% in 2003. Commercial land prices fell 5.6% continuing the fall of 7.4% in 2002. the pace of decline was reduced this year with major towns in Japan Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka showing a pace of decline of only 3.2% against 5.8% in 2003 for commercial areas. However, land in the 5 central wards of Tokyo (Chiyoda, Chuo, Minato, Shinjuku and Shibuya) have seen an increase of 0.8%

Eric Perraudin
http://www.japanconsult.com/

Japanese Law does not protect shareholder rights:

Japanese Law does not protect shareholder rights:
Livedoor who now owns more than 50% of Nippon Broadcasting has to wait 3 months till June to replace the current board of directors. It is impossible to call for an extraordinary shareholder meeting to change the Board even if you own the majority of shares in a company.
This type of archaism in Japanese Law really reflects the fact that a long way has still to go before shareholder rights are recognized in Japan.

by Eric Perraudin
http://www.japanconsult.com/