In Japanese business celebrations, there's one thing you'll almost always see: orchids.
Pots of the exotic flowers, which often sell for about ¥20,000 ($176), will be there in a newly appointed president's office, at the entrance of a company that just finished its initial public offering, and in the lobby of an investment fund that hit, say, ¥100 billion in assets.
Giving moth orchids in the business world, a practice that took off during the high-growth era of the 1980s, is so ingrained that the country now has its own listed orchid seller, ArtGreen Co. Its shares have surged 111 percent since it started trading on the Nagoya Stock Exchange in December 2015. ArtGreen President Yutaka Tanaka, who founded the company as a way to hit back after being bullied at school, says he owes his success to the custom and the flower itself.