When a 210-year-old vinegar company bought Unilever¡¯s Ragu and Bertolli pasta sauce business last month, it showed that Japanese firms are becoming more adventurous in their search for growth, said Goldman Sachs Group Inc.¡¯s national head of mergers and acquisitions.
¡°Japan M&A is breaking boundaries,¡± said Yoshihiko Yano, who is also a participating managing director at the U.S. firm. ¡°We have to be more creative and steer away from biases and assumptions like ¡®This company will normally do this,¡¯ or ¡®This type of move may happen in this industry.¡¯ ¡±
Japanese companies are pursuing mergers at home and abroad to counter a shrinking population, and Yano said they¡¯re increasingly taking advantage of low borrowing costs and rebounding share prices to help fund transactions. Takeovers involving the nation¡¯s companies were valued at $56.7 billion in the six months ended June 30, up from $49.1 billion a year earlier, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
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