When it comes to China, Kunimasa Miyakoshi has at least two claims to fame.
Some four decades ago, when he was only 37, the businessman led the first Japanese company to get a permit to do business in the country after World War II. And today, his Miyakoshi Holdings Inc. is the only stock in Japan's benchmark Topix index that generates 100 percent of sales from China, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Miyakoshi, once an electronics manufacturer, has changed course to become a real estate developer, and it's about to take the next step in its long relationship with the communist country. The company is working to cement a $1.1 billion deal, Miyakoshi says, that will grant it the rights to build office towers — which it calls innovation centers — in the technology hub Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong.