The nation's companies are targeting mergers and acquisitions abroad as the third-largest economy stagnates, yet it is crisis management that is driving deal volume in the country this year, not international expansion.
Announced acquisitions involving Japanese firms as the target or asset seller in the first five months of 2016 rose 62 percent to $55.4 billion, compared with the same period last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The volume is its highest in about a decade, the data show, as several of the nation's bigger companies, including Toshiba Corp. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp., are seeking to raise capital to help cope with corporate crises.
Toshiba, confronting a scandal over inflated earnings, sold its medical device unit to Canon Inc. for ¥665.5 billion in March. Mitsubishi Motors earlier this month agreed to sell a 34 percent stake to Nissan Motor Co. for about ¥237.4 billion. The capital infusion could be a crucial lifeline to the maker of Montero SUVs, whose market value is down more than 30 percent since it disclosed on April 20 that it overstated the fuel economy of its minicars and had been improperly testing some models since 1991.