Japanese banks would not help a foreigner to take over Minebea.
But mergers may happen. within Japan. By Eamonn Fingleton
Hostile takeovers are almost unknown in Japan. Even friendly ones
are rare. Many of those takeovers which have been done are the work of
Takami Takahashi. His Minebea ball bearing company has long been
regarded in Tokyo as a maverick. It has shunned affiliations with the
powerful zaibatsus. Takahashi has used his freedom from ties to pull
off deals that, in the eyes of his Tokyo contemporaries, look distinctly
unorthodox.
Takahashi's personal style is, if anything, even more jarring
to the Japanese. He hops around the country in a private helicopter,
relaxes in a rambling mountain-top villa whose dimensions would not
embarrass J R Ewing, and has a directness of conversational style that
would do justice to a New York cab driver.
Yet when the US financier...
