PCJR Economical Challenge Bureau

Estreno en El Prat

2009-06-16T01:35:00.000-07:00

Enrique Badía/ Estrella Digital

Los cálculos varían en función de quien los esgrime, pero en todo caso han pasado bastantes años desde que Barcelona comenzó a reclamar la ampliación del aeropuerto de El Prat. Mañana entrará al fin en servicio la nueva T-1, que prácticamente permitirá duplicar su teórica capacidad. Cuestión distinta será que se materialice el resto de cosas que de siempre se han esgrimido como elemento de agravio, sobre todo desde que en Madrid-Barajas se añadió la un tanto grandilocuente T-4, con todo lo que ha dado de sí en términos de comparación.
Como casi todas las obras públicas, esta de El Prat ha discurrido salpicada de polémicas que es poco probable desaparezcan con el acto de inauguración. Han sido de diversos tipos, con desigual grado de eco y agitación, no siempre del todo correspondiente con la trascendencia en términos de uso y funcionalidad. Habría que destacar quizás la enésima omisión del concepto intermodal que suele caracterizar la ejecutoria de las administraciones y entes públicos; en este caso concreto, AENA, titular exclusivo de la red de aeropuertos públicos españoles.
Tampoco las estimaciones de plazos coinciden, pero la más ajustada señala que se ha tardado alrededor de nueve años en llevar a cabo las obras. Tiempo que, sin embargo, no ha sido suficiente para que el remodelado aeropuerto disponga de una red de accesos acorde con los alrededor de 60 millones de pasajeros anuales que aspira mover: una de las carreteras más congestionadas del área metropolitana de Barcelona es el único modo de llegar a la nueva terminal. Sobre el papel se ha hablado de extender hasta allí la red de metro, así como prolongar la línea de cercanías que llega hasta los alrededores del primitivo edificio terminal, pero no es creíble que nada de eso tarde menos de tres o cuatro años, si no más.
La reivindicación de fondo de una parte relevante de la sociedad catalana, con los líderes políticos, empresariales y mediáticos al frente, es que El Prat se potencie para convertirlo en lo que se denomina hub; esto es, cabecera y enlace de vuelos intercontinentales. Con ese propósito se ha reclamado largo tiempo dotarlo de mucha mayor capacidad. Cuestión distinta es que determinadas decisiones políticas discurran en esa misma dirección.
Una de las incógnitas a tener presente es cómo se van a compadecer las aspiraciones de propiciar una mayor potenciación de El Prat con la política aeroportuaria del Gobierno catalán. Hace pocos meses aprobó un plan de dotación aeroportuaria que pretende primar el tráfico en Girona-Costa Brava y Reus-Costa Dorada, distantes apenas 100 kilómetros del centro de Barcelona, respectivamente en direcciones norte y sur, así como añadir hasta media docena de nuevos recintos, comenzando por la restitución operativa de los de Sabadell y La Seu d'Urgell, y la puesta en servicio el próximo otoño del construido en los alrededores de Lleida.
No hace falta ser un experto para presumir que el resto de aeropuertos de Cataluña acabará detrayendo tráfico a El Prat, por lo que potenciarlos en paralelo habrá de desembocar en la sobredimensión de alguno. Puro sentido común. De momento, la inauguración no ha tenido demasiada suerte: tras años de crecimiento apreciable del tráfico de pasajeros y mercancías, resulta que la nueva fase entra en servicio tras doce meses de caídas superiores al 10 por ciento. Y si esto es producto de la coyuntura, lo otro parece responder al hábito de considerar cada infraestructura de forma aislada, sin una visión de conjunto que haga todo más eficiente y eficaz.
Cerrando el círculo, cabe prever que la nueva terminal será bonita, aunque no esté tan asegurado, vistos los precedentes, que usarla rebose comodidad.

Corporate governance rules divide Japan

2009-06-08T00:31:00.000-07:00

By Michiyo Nakamoto in Tokyo
Published: May 28 2009 17:24 Last updated: May 28 2009 17:24

It used to be said that Japan’s business community, bureaucracy and politicians formed an iron triangle that was a key factor in the country’s post-war industrial success.
But a stand-off between the Keidanren, Japan’s powerful business lobby, and regulators over whether listed companies should be required to appoint outside directors has exposed cracks in the foundations of the Japanese economic edifice.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
Tokyo plans guidelines for independent directors - May-26
The Keidanren – headed by the indomitable Fujio Mitarai, chairman of Canon – is resisting an initiative by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to require listed companies to appoint outside directors as a means to improve corporate governance.
Japanese regulators, once criticised for their cosy relationships with companies, have joined investors in raising concerns about the impact of poor corporate governance on the future of the Japanese economy.
The issue of outside, independent directors has been the subject of much debate in recent years, particularly after it was raised by foreign fund managers unhappy with corporate governance standards in Japan.
Under Japanese company law, companies are free to choose between two systems of corporate governance: a system with committees, which requires the appointment of outside directors; and a statutory auditor system, which does not call for outside directors.
In practice, although just 56 of the 2,634 companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange have opted for the committee system, only 1,057 companies have outside directors. Corporate governance advocates, such as the Asian Corporate Governance Association, as well as foreign business lobby groups, including the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, believe companies should be required to have one-third of board members who are independent.
Regulators too, including Meti, the TSE and the Financial Services Agency have been working to improve corporate governance standards. “Investors are rapidly losing confidence and interest in [the] Tokyo market . . . market players, including . . . listed companies, are facing an urgent need to restore investor confidence and interest,” the TSE noted in a recent report.
The FSA has considered requiring mutual funds and insurance companies to disclose how they voted at shareholder meetings.
Meti plans to compile a report next month on reforms to Japan’s system of governance, in which it would like to include some form of requirement that companies appoint independent directors, as well as a clear definition of what is meant by independence.
But efforts by regulators to implement changes that would bring Japan’s corporate governance standards more in line with international practice have met fierce resistance from the business community. “There is no relationship between a company’s performance and whether or not they have outside directors,” says Yasuhisa Abe, director of the business infrastructure bureau of the Keidanren.
A draft report by Meti’s Corporate Governance Study Group published on Tuesday, suggests Keidanren’s opposition is leading to a compromise solution.
According to the draft, companies will be allowed to choose whether to appoint outside directors. But companies that do not appoint outside directors must disclose their own system of management oversight.
The changes will make Japanese rules similar to the “comply or explain” system in the UK, whereby it is recommended companies have a majority of independent directors and if they do not, are required to explain why.
For many investors concerned about corporate governance in Japan, the final outcome is likely to fall significantly short of what they had hoped for. As one observer notes, given the Keidanren’s power and the lack of public debate, any attempt to impose changes that the business community opposes will end up “whittled down and diluted”.

Japón registra déficit comercial por primera vez en 30 años

2009-04-22T01:20:00.001-07:00

Publicado el 22-04-2009 , por Expansión.com
Japón registró en el ejercicio fiscal 2008 su primer déficit comercial en 28 años, si bien en marzo el ritmo de retroceso de las exportaciones, del 45,6%, fue algo menor que el récord mínimo marcado en febrero.
Desde abril de 2008 a marzo de 2009, el año fiscal que sirve como referencia en Japón, la balanza comercial de la segunda economía del mundo tuvo un déficit de 7.346 millones de dólares, a consecuencia de la caída récord de sus exportaciones anuales del 16,4%, informa EFE.
Ha sido el primer descenso en siete años de las exportaciones de Japón durante un año fiscal, hasta los 720.577 millones de dólares, y también de las importaciones, del 4,1%, hasta los 727.970 millones de dólares, según el Ministerio de Finanzas.
El déficit, que cambia la tradicional tendencia al superávit comercial de Japón, es resultado sobre todo del fuerte descenso de sus exportaciones a causa de la caída de la demanda internacional, que ha empujado a la segunda economía del mundo a su peor crisis desde el final de la II Guerra Mundial. Este es el peor resultado comercial para Japón desde 1980, después de la segunda crisis del petróleo.
Las exportaciones de Japón a su principal mercado, Estados Unidos, bajaron el 27,2% en el ejercicio fiscal 2008, mientras las ventas a la Unión Europea (UE) retrocedieron casi un 40 por ciento en el año fiscal que concluyó el 31 de marzo. Con América Latina, sin embargo, la balanza comercial de Japón supuso apenas una caída del 2,2%, debido a que con Brasil su superávit anual creció el 75%, lo que contrarrestó los descensos del 22,7% con México y del 36,3 con Chile.
El déficit comercial anual de Japón responde a los aumentos de precio del petróleo y otras materias primas en el primer semestre, que afectó a las importaciones, mientras en la segunda mitad del año el impacto de la crisis fue brutal sobre las exportaciones, algo especialmente evidente en Asia. Con China, su segundo socio tras Estados Unidos, Japón incrementó en un 13% su déficit comercial por primera vez en tres años, lo mismo que ocurrió con el resto de Asia, aunque ahí el retroceso fue más acusado, del 35 por ciento.
Indicios de recuperaciónNo obstante, los analistas veían hoy indicios para el optimismo en los resultados de marzo: segundo superávit consecutivo en la balanza comercial de Japón, uno de los países más afectados por la recesión en todo el mundo según los datos macroeconómicos. El superávit fue de 111 millones de dólares, un retroceso del 99% frente al registrado en ese mes de 2008, pero las exportaciones disminuyeron el 45,6%, por debajo del 49,4% de caída en febrero, su tercer récord mínimo consecutivo. Fue especialmente significativo el dato de las ventas de bienes japoneses a China, que descendió el 31,5% en marzo, menos que el casi 40% de caída en febrero y del 45% de retroceso de enero.

El paro de Japón alcanza el 4,4%, la tasa más alta en tres años

2009-03-31T00:43:00.001-07:00

Ref: EL CONFIDENCIAL

La tasa de desempleo en Japón subió tres décimas, en febrero, respecto al mes anterior, hasta situarse en el 4,4%, informó hoy el Gobierno. Respecto a febrero de 2008, el número de parados aumentó por cuarto mes consecutivo en 330.000 personas hasta llegar a 2,99 millones, según los datos preliminares del Ministerio del Interior y Comunicaciones, recogidos por la agencia local de noticias Kyodo.
La tasa de desempleo de febrero sobrepasó ligeramente las previsiones de mercado que apuntaban a un aumento del paro de hasta el 4,3%, según una encuesta realizada por Kyodo. Otro informe gubernamental señaló que la cifra de ofertas de trabajo respecto a los buscadores de empleo en febrero se situó en el 0,59, por debajo del 0,63 al que apuntaban las previsiones.
Este porcentaje indica que el pasado mes hubo 59 ofertas para cada 100 buscadores de trabajo, frente a las 67 por cada 100 disponibles en enero. Según el Ejecutivo, el número de ofertas de trabajo en febrero decreció el 6,7% con respecto al mes anterior, mientras que el número de buscadores de empleo aumentó un 4,9%. El porcentaje de ofertas nuevas de trabajo cayó el 30,1% en febrero con respecto al mismo mes del año anterior.
Compañías como Toyota Motor o NEC están llevando a cabo fuertes despidos, aumentando las presiones sobre el Gobierno nipón para que ofrezca mayor asistencia a los desempleados, la mayoría de los cuales no reciben ningún tipo de compensación económica. Precisamente el ministro de finanzas, Kaoru Yosano, ha dicho que el Gobierno prepara un plan de estímulo a mediados de abril que incluirá, entre otras medidas, ayudas a los desempleados.
Japón sen enfrenta a la peor recesión desde la Segunda Guerra Mundual desde que la demanda de sus vehículos y productos electrónicos se evapora. Las exportaciones cayeron casi un 50% en febrero respecto al mismo mes de 2008, un porcentaje histórico. Además, la producción industrial se contrajo un 9,4%, cuando en enero registró otra caída del 10,2%.

Lawson to buy am/pm for JPY15 billion

2009-02-26T08:50:00.001-08:00

Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009
Lawson looks to buy am/pm for ¥15 billion
Kyodo News
Lawson Inc., Japan's second-largest convenience store chain, said Wednesday it plans to acquire smaller rival am/pm Japan Co. for between ¥14 billion and ¥15 billion as it seeks to expand its operations in the densely populated Tokyo area.
Lawson said it has struck a basic agreement with Rex Holdings Co., the owner of am/pm Japan, for the acquisition.
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"By making am/pm (Japan), which has a concentration of store chains and customers in the Tokyo metropolitan area, one of our group firms, we will be able to attain dominance," Lawson said in a statement.
Lawson hopes to better compete with market leader Seven-Eleven Japan Co. by taking over seventh-ranked am/pm Japan, which has over 500 convenience stores in Tokyo's 23 wards, observers said.
The acquisition will be the first major realignment in the industry since Circle K Japan Co. and Sunkus & Associated Inc. integrated their operations in 2001.
Observers said the acquisition of am/pm Japan may trigger another industrywide reshuffle as competition intensifies amid deteriorating economic conditions.
Rex Holdings Co., which owns am/pm Japan, had been looking to sell the convenience store chain after its efforts failed to turn around the money-losing outlets.
Lawson said it will acquire all shares of am/pm Japan for ¥1 from Rex Holdings and others in exchange for taking over am/pm Japan's interest-bearing debts of about ¥20 billion.

Malas Noticias en cascada

2009-02-11T03:53:00.001-08:00

The Economist, vuelve a la carga esta semana con sendas noticias (1 y 2) sobre la economía japonesa, no demasiado optimistas. La verdad nada nuevo en la nevera, los cerebros integrantes de este bloggerl lo habíamos previsto un año vista, en nuestros enriquecedores debates de barra de bar.

"Early in, early out" o vamos que nos vamos

2009-01-28T02:46:00.000-08:00

Jan 22nd 2009 TOKYO

From The Economist print edition.

An economy not hit directly by the financial storm is shrinking much faster than any other developed one.

NO EVENT is seared upon Japan’s recent memory like the bursting of the country’s credit-inflated bubble in land and share prices after 1990. Yet, since the autumn, the speed with which Japan’s industrial output and exports have fallen almost certainly signals a slump of unprecedented severity, making Japan’s several post-bubble recessions look mild. In 1998, the worst year, the economy shrank by 2%. Most economists think it contracted by more than that in the last three months of 2008 alone. Goldman Sachs expects GDP to fall by 3.8% this year.
After six years of growth, the longest uninterrupted post-war run, Japan entered a new recession as early as the second quarter of 2008. But in the final couple of months of the year, what at first was a fairly gentle decline morphed into something far worse than that experienced even by countries at the centre of the credit storm (see chart).
In November the value of exports fell by 27% year on year. The picture only worsened in December with a year-on-year fall of 35%. Recession in the United States was the main cause, with exports there down by 36.9% from a year earlier. In turn, the global slump has also knocked supply chains in Asia, sending Japan’s exports to China down by 35.5% in December, with exports to Asia’s “tigers” (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) falling by even more than those to America.
Exports account for almost half of Japan’s manufacturing output, which as a consequence is seeing its biggest falls since records began: November’s output was down by 13% on a year earlier. Orders for machine tools in December, an early indicator of things to come, were 72% lower than a year before. Hiroshi Shiraishi of BNP Paribas reckons that by December industrial output had already fallen back to its post-bubble low in 2001, wiping out the gains from six years of what had been thought to be a solid recovery. Before the slump is over, Mr Shiraishi expects production to slide back to levels last seen in 1987.
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It has not helped that the export demand that drove Japan’s economic recovery after 2002 was narrowly based on cars and consumer technology, industries that have fallen more than most. Carmakers, for instance, are roughly halving production, with consequences for makers of steel, chips and chemicals.
Perhaps the most unexpected element of the slump is the knock that domestic sentiment is taking. After all, Japan had none of the credit excesses of America and much of Europe: rather than borrow in recent years, Japan’s companies have paid off debts, while households sit on a pile of savings. The financial system is largely untainted by toxic securities and bad debts, and though the regional banks look set to start asking for public funds, the big city banks are some way from needing to do that. Still, consumer demand, never strong during the six-year recovery, has weakened fast. Year-on-year car sales are down by more than a fifth; department-store sales have fallen by nearly a tenth. On January 20th the Cabinet Office released its consumer-confidence survey for December, which marked its third consecutive all-time low. The survey points to how badly the slump has spread to services.
ReutersThe inducements aren’t working
To cap it all, Japan now faces the return of a ghost it thought it had banished: deflation. By the summer, prices will be falling again. To the extent that this marks a decline in energy prices since last year, it is helpful. But another persistent fall in prices would be a sign of policy failure. In December the Bank of Japan was forced to cut interest rates almost to zero, ie, back to where they last were in 2006. On January 22nd it announced expanded plans to buy commercial paper and even corporate bonds. Takatoshi Ito of Tokyo University, until recently a government adviser, thinks the bank should be doing much more, including making a clear commitment to targeting a positive rate of inflation.
There is cause to temper the pessimism. Households still have their savings. And bank lending to companies is on the rise, though a good chunk of this is taking over from credit once supplied by capital markets, which have dried up.
Crucially, adjustments are happening swiftly in areas that beleaguered companies tackled only slowly during the last slump, such as bloated workforces and excessive capacity. Bankruptcies of “zombie” companies long kept alive on cheap credit and an undervalued currency have soared now that credit is harder to get and the yen has risen to a fairer valuation on a trade-weighted basis. And at the end of a decade in which much more use was made of contract and temporary workers, companies are now laying these off fast. In order to reduce inventories, production is also being slashed. This marks a new flexibility in Japan’s economy.
Unemployment, now 3.9%, may head back towards the post-bubble high of 5.5%. At the same time, the structure of the labour force may lessen the pain. As the economy recovered, many companies asked workers from Japan’s huge generation of baby-boomers to stay on past retirement age. Plenty of these will now simply retire with their pensions. Swift adjustments to workforces and inventories mean that Japan may recover sooner than other rich economies.
But when, and how robust, that recovery will be is another matter. However fast companies are cutting capacity that once served Americans’ debt-fuelled consumption, Japan’s whole economic structure is geared towards meeting external demand. That post-war model in Japan is now bust. So too is the political system that built and guided it: after half a century of almost unbroken power, the Liberal Democratic Party, having lost its purpose, is threatened with annihilation at the polls in the next few months.
Ageing population, decrepit politics
Political dysfunction has now become perhaps the biggest issue for the economy. Policymakers should be debating how to foster domestic demand in an ageing and shrinking society—for instance, by dismantling regulations in health care and services for the old that benefit producers over users. Instead, the government is locked in a sterile fight, within its own ranks as well as with the opposition, over a relatively small stimulus worth ¥2 trillion ($22 billion), much of which will be pocketed by consumers, not spent. Masaaki Kanno of JPMorgan Securities thinks that a stimulus four times bigger, designed to raise productivity, is needed to counter the slump in demand.
The government’s timidity is encouraged in part by a national debt that soared during the post-bubble years: the ratio of net debt to GDP stands at over 90%. Yet interest rates and so the cost of servicing the debt remain very low; and almost all the debt-holders are Japanese, not flighty foreigners. The risks lie in favour of more vigorous action.
The same applies to the central bank, whose natural caution is reinforced by the absence of political direction or debate. For instance, a case might be made for the Bank of Japan, as well as clearly targeting inflation, to buy equities, so boosting commercial banks’ capital, a big part of which is made up of shareholdings whose value continued to lurch down this week. So here is the irony: whereas the rest of the rich world, starting with America, desperately seeks to avoid Japan’s experience in the post-bubble years, Japan today is condemned by its own dismal politics to drag along behind everyone else.

FELIZ AÑO NUEVO

2009-01-26T04:07:00.000-08:00

Nos congratulamos de nuevo con nosotros mismos por este nuevo año que nos has sido concedido para reparar todo lo deleznable del anterior. MAHOC, MAHOC!! THE END IS CLOSE!!

Yokoso Japón

2008-12-21T04:22:00.001-08:00

Jaime Martín* - 21/12/2008

Nada más desembarcar en el aeropuerto de Tokio lo primero que atrajo mi atención fueron los enormes letreros de la campaña de imagen Yokoso Japan, Bienvenido a Japón... ¿Bienvenido a Japón? Era el lema más ingenuo que podía imaginar, ¡podría funcionar en cualquier rincón del planeta! Me pregunté si escondía algo que a mí, occidental mesetario que por vez primera pisaba suelo japonés, me estaba vedado comprender. Finalmente olvidé el tema y me dispuse a disfrutar del viaje, prometiendo que mi visión de branding del mundo no se interpondría entre mí y el país nipón. Vaya, yo sí que era ingenuo.

Japón es un país fascinante, y la cultura y tendencias que de allí emanan ejercen desde hace algún tiempo influencia creciente. La cocina nipona es hoy omnipresente en nuestras ciudades, los jóvenes occidentales leen manga y juegan a la play, Issey Miyake es un referente en el mundo de la moda, Murakami ha vendido más de ocho millones de libros, Toyota hace del Prius el coche más ‘verde’ del planeta y directores extranjeros como Iñárritu (Babel) o Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) ruedan allí, no sólo porque Japón es la meta-modernidad, sino porque además vende un montón. No es la primera vez que esto ocurre. En el siglo XIX, Europa vivió una fiebre japonesa tras la apertura del país a punta de cañón por el comodoro Perry. En esos tiempos, el arte y la cultura japonesa viajaron hasta las capitales de medio mundo, conquistando el gusto de la multitud. Van Gogh o Gauguin se enamoraron de los grabados Ukiyo-e, en los cuales artistas como Hiroshige plasmaban la realidad con una sencillez nunca vista, presagiando el impresionismo e incluso el comic manga. Sigan conmigo, esto no va de pintura.

Tokio es el epicentro de las tendencias en Japón. Los japoneses adoran todo lo novedoso, y si se trata de artículos de lujo, mejor. En los últimos años ha surgido el fenómeno social de los solteros parásitos, jóvenes empleados que viven con sus papás y gastan todo su dinero en Vuitton o Chanel (vaya, como en España, solo que aquí no tienen un duro). En Tokio tuve la oportunidad de ver una enorme fila de chicas muy jóvenes que serpenteaba varias manzanas hasta desembocar en la recién inaugurada tienda H&M, la primera del país. Todos los turistas estábamos boquiabiertos ante aquel desenfreno por ser las primeras en ir a la última. Sin embargo, no es en la Chuo-Dori, la milla de oro, donde se ve lo último en tribus y moda urbana. Para eso hay que darse una vuelta por Shibuya y ver desfilar un sin fin de adolescentes emulando bebés, con pololos incluidos y pecas pintadas, chicas vestidas de criadas, chicos con chihuahuas del brazo, personajes salidos de comics manga, en fin, una carnaval.

Un lugar realmente fuera de lo común en Tokio es el mercado de pescado de Tsukiji. En la lonja se despachan a diario cientos de atunes. Al amanecer, los trabajadores alinean los pescados de hasta 300 kg en una nave, marcan los lotes con pintura roja, les dan un tajo en la cola, y luego los compradores toman muestras para comprobar su calidad. En un abrir y cerrar de ojos empieza la frenética puja, y poco después de allí parten los bichos para saciar el estómago de los amantes del sushi y el sashimi. Como reclamo turístico, este lugar tan poco convencional funciona y está lleno de turistas, añadiendo una capa más de atractivo a la ciudad. Curiosamente, Isabel Coixet toma la lonja como escenario en su próxima película.

Otra vez mi deformación profesional se interpone entre la realidad y mi yo viajero. El turismo actual busca experiencias más allá de la fórmula de palacios, museos y jardines. Esta demanda se puede canalizar haciendo branding de lugares insospechados. París lo hace con sus cementerios y sistemas de cloacas, Tokio con su lonja y sus tribus urbanas, Los Ángeles con sus pozos de petróleo y su mercado mejicano. En segundo lugar, al igual que hay product placement en las películas y en los libros, los city placement sirven para construir imagen. La ciudad condal, con Vicky Cristina Barcelona o La sombra del viento, supera a Madrid, ciudad a la que no le vendría mal que un gran director internacional se fijase en ella para rodar su próxima película.

Otra lección de branding desde Japón, especialmente ahora que tanto se habla y divaga sobre la ‘marca España’, es la amabilidad exquisita de los japoneses. El japonés hace todo lo posible para que el viajero se sienta a gusto. No gritan, sonríen, ponen suma atención en el detalle. En verano, cuando se llega a un hotel, lo primero que ofrecen es una toallita húmeda para aliviar el calor y en algunos lugares un te o un zumo. Son detalles pequeños, pero de gran importancia. Lógicamente forma parte de su cultura y de cómo son educados desde niños. En un país como España, donde tanta gente vive del turismo, y teniendo en cuenta que el modelo de sol y playa se agota, cabe pensar si el trato al turista podría mejorarse. Me contaba un amigo que en Barcelona vio como unos ingleses, tras pedir pantumaca, se comían a mordisco el tomate y el ajo, ante la indiferencia del camarero. Mi amigo por supuesto, se acercó y explicó como funcionaba aquello. Esto tal vez no sea la norma, pero para hacer de nuestro país un lugar cada vez más sugerente, la capacidad de servicio y la atención creo que deben mejorar. Detalles como ofrecer un zumo o una toallita no serían triviales, serían todo un símbolo de esa hospitalidad de la que tanto hacemos gala.

Al final de mi viaje, Yokoso Japan cobraba todo su sentido.

Germany Aims to Guide the West’s Ties to Russia

2008-12-02T03:40:00.000-08:00

MOSCOW — In the heat of the Georgia crisis in August, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany flew to Russia to warn about the consequences of renewed militarism. Two days later she was in Georgia, voicing support for the country’s eventual entry into NATO.
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Misha Japaridze/Associated Press
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany with President Dimitri A. Medvedev of Russia.
Autumn crept in and passions cooled. The beginning of October found Mrs. Merkel back in Russia, looking on as the German utility E.ON and the Russian state energy giant Gazprom signed a significant deal in St. Petersburg, giving the German firm a stake in the enormous Yuzhno-Russkoye natural gas field in Siberia.
Mrs. Merkel’s shifting focus served as a reminder of the pivotal role played by Germany in shaping the West’s relationship with Russia. It is Russia’s largest trading partner, Europe’s single biggest economy and one of America’s closest allies. Moscow’s aggressive posture has not only thrust Russia, a nuclear-armed energy power, back to the geopolitical spotlight. It has also dragged Germany there with it.
Just as the United States is struggling to redefine its relationship with a resurgent and at times antagonistic government in Moscow, Germany is scrambling to protect the close commercial, cultural and diplomatic ties with Russia it has forged since the end of the cold war — and, in some areas, long before.
How broad that divide has grown will become clearer this week, when NATO foreign ministers gather in Brussels. Berlin and Washington are at odds over how to deal with NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine — a tussle that at its heart is about how to deal with Russia.
As the United States aims mainly to counter Russia’s newfound military assertiveness, Germany favors steps to develop Russia economically and ensure its political stability. Germany sees its responsibility to guide Russia, not contain it.
The incoming Obama administration, which has vowed to pursue a new path to curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions as well as achieving other foreign policy goals that involve Russia, may find that one road to Moscow runs through Berlin. At a minimum, it seems likely to have to address Germany’s deeper interests in Russia.
“There are serious disagreements between Washington and Berlin from which Moscow can only benefit if there is not better coordination,” said Angela Stent, who served as the top Russia officer at the United States government’s National Intelligence Council from 2004 to 2006 and now directs Russian studies at Georgetown University. “The Obama administration should work with the Germans as it reassesses U.S. policy toward Russia.”
Weary of American lectures about the fact that 36 percent of the natural gas that heats German homes comes from Russia, some German politicians wonder how Americans can worry more about this energy dependence than they themselves do.
“Many Germans believe Bush only invaded Iraq for oil, and many Americans believe Germany’s Russia policy is determined by gas,” said Karsten D. Voigt, who coordinates German-American relations in the German Foreign Ministry and who for years ran the German-Russian parliamentary group in the German Parliament. “Every German government since at least the 1970s has tried to bind Russia, and before that the Soviet Union, more closely with Europe.”
Sergei Kupriyanov, a representative of Gazprom, said, “Our cooperation began during the cold war,” referring to deals — opposed by the United States — that laid gas pipelines between Russia and Germany in the 1970s. “The Berlin Wall still existed,” he said. “Compared to what we had then, Georgia is just peanuts.”
Germans see not dependence on Russia, but interdependence. The European Union’s 27 nations account for 80 percent of the cumulative foreign investment in Russia, a fact starkly exposed — if the Kremlin ever forgot — by the flight of capital after the Georgia crisis.
The Europeans, after Georgia, angrily froze negotiations with Russia over a new partnership agreement. Barely 10 weeks later, they decided to resume the talks. “We cannot build a European architecture against Russia or without Russia, only with Russia,” said Alexander Rahr, director of the Russian/Eurasian program at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
While Germany needs Russia’s raw materials and covets the significant market there for its precision machine tools, Russia is equally dependent on European investment to diversify its economy, a fact driven home all too clearly for Russians now that the financial crisis has sent energy prices plunging.
In the city of Yaroslavl, an automotive company, the GAZ Group, still makes diesel truck engines in a factory first built in the waning days of czarist rule in 1916. The production model evokes Soviet times, starting with iron in the foundry on the site, with workers building almost the entire engine from scratch.
A short drive away, past clusters of birch trees, is a field of concrete, metal trusses and corrugated iron roofing. It is the beginning of a state-of-the-art production plant for the company’s new engine model, a project valued at $442 million.
The plant sits a few hours north of Moscow by car, but the names of the suppliers sound like a roll call of German industry, with most of the new machinery and production lines supplied by German companies like Grob-Werke and ThyssenKrupp Krause.
“Germany is, in terms of technology, expertise and know how in the automotive industry, I think the best in the world,” said Ruslan Grekov, the project director for the new engine in Yaroslavl. “Of course, Germany is different from Russia. The difference is good.”
Such sentiments might seem surprising, even jarring, in a country where, in Soviet times, Nazis were vilified in a daily diet of war movies.
But the bonds between Europe’s two largest countries were forged over centuries, as German nobles like Catherine the Great became Russian royalty and German generals led the czar’s armies. German craftsmen worked in Moscow while German farmers settled near the Volga River.
The relationship has been tempered on the German side with guilt over World War II and gratitude over German reunification.
But always the anchor has been business, with Germany’s technical skill complementing Russia’s vast resources. The German conglomerate Siemens laid the Russian state telegraph network in the 1850s. Stalin built Soviet industrial might in his first Five-Year Plan in large part with German machines.
The current global slowdown has sent ripples of fear across Russia about a possible repeat of the 1998 collapse of the ruble. The World Bank halved its expectation for Russian growth next year, but it was still 3 percent, whereas the German economy, already in recession, is expected to contract, making Russia all the more important as layoffs in Germany mount.
Trade between Russia and Germany grew 25 percent to $49.3 billion in the first half of the year. Russia is one of Germany’s fastest-growing markets. Last year, German exports to Russia totaled $36 billion, more than five times the $6.7 billion exported from the United States to Russia.
German businessmen not only work out of sales offices in Moscow or invest in the country’s rich oil and gas fields. They are all over — from Siberia to Yekaterinburg to St. Petersburg, with some 4,600 companies in all investing $13.2 billion, building factories and delivering machinery to Russians who aspire to be more than the raw-goods store for European neighbors.
Today, Siemens is supplying Russia with its first high-speed trains, known as the Velaro RUS. The contract is worth $758 million for Siemens, half for the trains and half for servicing.
The oligarch Roman Abramovich’s construction firm Infrastruktura announced this year that it had ordered the world’s largest drill from the German company Herrenknecht to bore tunnels in Moscow and near Sochi in preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Igor Yurgens, executive board chairman at the Institute of Contemporary Development in Moscow, of which President Dimitri A. Medvedev is board chairman, said Germany was a strategic partner and the most patient investor in Russia’s future.
“We do not have laws in this country, but we have a lot of friendships, and friendship is more important than laws,” Mr. Yurgens said, in an interview in his Moscow office just off the city’s Garden Ring Road, where sputtering old Ladas inch through jams alongside late-model Mercedes sedans. “That’s historically so. And with Germans, this is the case.”
“On the background of this economic very strong cooperation and involvement, their criticism is taken a bit more lightly than the criticism of some others who do nothing at all, but just keep criticizing,” Mr. Yurgens added.
When Mr. Medvedev threatened after the American election to place new missiles in Kaliningrad, the location was a symbol of the painful, complex relationship between Russia and Germany. That island of Russian territory — awkwardly perched between the NATO members Poland and Lithuania — was the German city of Königsberg before it fell to the Soviets in the wake of World War II.
Yet in a sign of the opportunities presented by the Russian-German-American triangle, it was Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, from the usually Russia-friendly Social Democrats, who issued perhaps the sternest rebuff to Mr. Medvedev. It was “the wrong signal at the wrong time,” Mr. Steinmeier said the next day.
The incoming Obama administration, German officials say quietly, should take note. As indicated by Mr. Medvedev’s backpedaling since, the Russians apparently did.

¿Deuda de EEUU denominada en yenes? El 'bono Obama' podría suceder al 'bono Carter'

2008-11-19T03:58:00.000-08:00

elEconomista.es 11Los economistas japoneses, cada vez más preocupados por la posibilidad de que Estados Unidos pague su enorme y creciente deuda en dólares, podrían pedir que los bonos del Tesoro se emitan en yenes, según recoge el Asia Times Online. Y es que aunque ahora parece poco probable que EEUU suspenda pagos, un dólar débil podría ser una ayuda para aliviar el peso de la deuda del país. China ha superado a Japón como mayor tenedor de bonos del Tesoro de EEUU.
"No hay ninguna duda de que el dólar se debilitará", dijo al periódico asiático Eisuke Sakakibara, profesor de la Waseda University. "El dólar está fuerte ahora por razones técnicas. El dinero que las firmas estadounidenses invirtieron por el mundo está siendo repatriado, provocando una compra de dólares. Pero una vez que esto termine, la moneda volverá a bajar", añadió Sakakibara.
De hecho, los economistas japoneses ya estarían pidiendo a Obama que emita deuda en yenes y otras monedas, según el Asia Times, lo que permitiría reducir el riesgo percibido de ser tenedor de bonos estadounidenses.
Ya lo hizo Carter
Esta idea, de todas formas, no es nueva porque el presidente Jimmy Carter ya lo hizo en la década de los 70 a consecuencia de las crisis del petróleo con los denominados Bonos Carter. Además, en 1978 emitió deuda denominada en marcos alemanes y francos suizos para atraer a más inversores.
"Estados Unidos se va a ver forzado a emitir bonos denominados en monedas extranjeras", explicó Kazuo Mizuno, de Mitsubishi UFJ Securities. "Estados Unidos no puede financiarse por sí mismo. El sistema financiero estadounidense no puede sobrevivir sin inversores extranjeros. Veremos Bonos Obama en el futuro", añadió.
El yen ha sido hasta ahora una de las monedas que más se han apreciado con la crisis financiera internacional, aupado por los inversores que deshacían sus posiciones de carry trade (pedir prestado en yenes por su bajo coste y cambiarlo por otras monedas para invertir en productos que rendían más que el tipo de interés pagado en Japón).
Así, la divisa nipona ha avanzado un 15% frente al dólar, un 33% frente al euro y un 53% frente a la libra. Así, según se revaloriza el yen disminuye el valor real de los activos de deuda denominada en dólares que compraron los inversores asiáticos, algo que no ocurriría con bonos denominados en yenes.:18 - 19/11/2008

Los consejos de Panasonic y Sanyo aprueban una alianza de negocio y capital

2008-11-07T04:28:00.000-08:00

Panasonic y Sanyo acordaron hoy en sendas reuniones de sus respectivos consejos de administración comenzar el proceso para una alianza de capital y de negocio entre las dos compañías.

Sanyo se convertirá en una subsidiaria de Panasonic, compañía conocida hasta el pasado octubre como Matsushita, y la firma resultante de la suma de ambas será la mayor del sector de la electrónica japonesa.
Panasonic concretará una oferta en enero para adquirir la mayoría de las acciones de Sanyo, después de negociar con los principales accionistas, los bancos japoneses Sumitomo Mitsui y Daiwa Securities SMBC, y el estadounidense Goldman Sachs Group. En 2006 Sanyo emitió 300.000 millones de yenes (3.039 millones de dólares) en acciones preferentes que compraron los tres bancos. Si esas acciones se convirtieran en acciones comunes, la participación supondría el 70% de los derechos de voto de la compañía.
Sumitomo Mitsui y Daiwa Securities están básicamente a favor de la intención de compra de Panasonic, según las fuentes de Kyodo, pero Goldman Sachs no ha mostrado una intención clara.
Si la operación se lleva a cabo con éxito Panasonic y Sanyo deberán solucionar la duplicación de operaciones como la producción de semiconductores y electrodomésticos, pero probablemente se mantendrán tanto los sistemas de operaciones, como la fuerza laboral y la marca de Sanyo.

Algunas lecciones de la crisis japonesa

2008-11-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

Publicado el 03-11-2008 , por José Carlos Díez. Economista jefe de InterMoney

En 1991, la bolsa japonesa y los precios inmobiliarios se desplomaron y provocaron la peor crisis de un país desarrollado desde la Gran Depresión. El sistema bancario había financiado toda aquella locura y el desplome del valor de los colaterales provocó una quiebra sistémica, cuyo saneamiento ha costado el 15% del PIB japonés.
La principal característica de la crisis fue la inacción, tanto de los responsables de la política económica como de las empresas y de los bancos.
Cuando comenzaron a tomar medidas, el sistema financiero estaba quebrado, la economía entró en una trampa de la liquidez keynesiana, la política monetaria perdió efectividad y el policy mix de política económica fue desastroso, especialmente la política cambiaria y fiscal que acabaron neutralizando sus efectos restando efectividad a las medidas. A continuación, se va analizar las consecuencias de la crisis, que más de tres lustros después mantienen a la economía nipona al borde de la deflación.
La deflación malignaLa deflación es una patología atípica y es lógico que los economistas nos preocupemos más de proteger a las economías de la inflación que es más habitual. Pero, Japón es un ejemplo de la deflación y sus efectos deben hacer que cualquier sociedad tome las medidas que sean necesarias para protegerse de ella.

En el gráfico 1 se puede observar la debilidad del crecimiento de del PIB que ha registrado un crecimiento promedio anual de 1,3% desde 2001 hasta 2007. Destaca la debilidad del consumo privado y la inversión y la fortaleza de las exportaciones.
Cuando las familias tienen expectativas deflacionistas retrasan sus decisiones de consumo, especialmente de bienes duraderos, ya que esperan que al año siguiente podrán comprar los bienes más baratos.
La debilidad de consumo estanca las ventas de las empresas y la deflación de precios, junto a salarios nominales rígidos a la baja, hunde los márgenes empresariales, lo cual elimina cualquier incentivo a invertir en nuevos proyectos empresariales e incluso en proteger a la capacidad instalada de su depreciación.
Esto explica que la tesis de Keynes en la teoría General fuera que ante la contracción de la demanda efectiva, tenía que ser el gasto público el que compensase los efectos de deflación para evitar en una caída en picado de la acumulación de capital que hundiese el crecimiento potencial.

Por fortuna para Japón, la burbuja se concentró en el precio de los activos inmobiliarios y de las acciones pero no se contagió al resto del mundo, por lo que gracias a su elevada capacidad tecnológica la economía puede mantener el crecimiento y la acumulación de capital vía exportaciones. Eso libró a Japón de la pobreza extrema que si se produjo en la Gran Depresión.
En el gráfico 2 se puede observar cómo el sector público tardó varios años en implementar políticas fiscales expansivas y cuando lo hizo fue ineficaz, al no priorizar el gasto en infraestructuras y acompañarlo de medidas de liberalización de sus economías para aumentar el crecimiento potencial.
ConclusionesAunque en la actual crisis también hay deflación de activos, por fortuna hay muchas diferencias que alejan el caso japonés del escenario central, aunque el riesgo sigue existiendo. La principal es que al ser una crisis de activos, el desplome de los mercados, especialmente de las bolsas, ha hecho que la sociedad sea consciente de la gravedad de la crisis y ha favorecida la acción de los Gobiernos.
Las primeras medidas han sido apuntalar el sistema financiero y recapitalizar a los bancos más afectados, pero ahora ha llegado la hora de la política fiscal. En las últimas décadas el paradigma liberal del minimalismo público «menos estado es más» ha primado la rebaja de impuestos. A partir de ahora, la incertidumbre es máxima y la bajada de impuestos puede ser destinada por las familias al ahorro, por lo que replicaríamos la trampa de la liquidez keynesiana que ha asolado Japón.
El gasto público tiene un efecto multiplicador y acaba arras-trando al sector privado al reactivar el empleo y las rentas salariales. Lo relevante es tener presente que el Estado no puede suplantar al sector privado permanentemente y que debe priorizar el gasto en infraestructuras. El anuncio de fuertes emisiones de deuda pública mundial ha provocado un aumento de las pendientes de las curvas de tipos, lo cual nos aleja del caso japonés. Sin duda, una gran noticia.

Santander writes a new chapter as it emerges as banking predator

2008-10-22T09:43:00.001-07:00

By Victor Mallet
Published: October 21 2008 03:00 Last updated: October 21 2008 03:00

Emilio Botín, chairman of Santander and the third person of that name to head the Spanish bank since it was founded in 1857, makes the art of banking sound deceptively simple even in the midst of a global financial crisis.
The world's banks, Mr Botín said last week, needed to focus on customers, make the most of recurrent business, manage risks prudently and reinforce corporate governance.
Under Mr Botín, now 74, Santander has expanded rapidly in Europe and the Americas over the past two decades. Yet envious executives at rival banks are asking whether Mr Botín, for all his sermons, has overreached himself with his latest round of acquisitions.
Merrill Lynch yesterday listed Santander as one of the big European banks that might need to raise more capital.
Shares in Santander, the biggest bank in the eurozone by market capitalisation, have been pummelled along with those of other banks during the crisis.
Santander, however, has emerged not only as a survivor but as a predator exploiting the credit crunch to purchase weaker banks.
José Antonio Alvarez, chief financial officer, said recently that Santander could benefit from a "winner takes all" market in the crisis "by rescuing falling banks at attractive prices".
Five days later, Santander announced a $1.9bn deal to buy Sovereign Bancorp of the US.
Earlier, Mr Botín had boasted to shareholders: "We are really in a magnificent position compared with our competitors."
Having bought Abbey National, Alliance & Leicester and the deposits and branches of the nationalised Bradford & Bingley, Santander is now a force in British retail banking as well as in Spain and Latin America.
Santiago López Díaz, an analyst for Credit Suisse, says the crisis has given Santander the chance to make acquisitions far more cheaply than in its dozens of previous deals.
"Right now Santander, in relative terms, is in a much better position than most of the European banks," he says.
Santander has succeeded with the help of a lot of skill and a little luck.
As Mr Botín likes to remind his listeners, risk control requires hard work, not fancy innovations.
Five directors on Santander's risk management committee meet twice a week for at least four hours. The bank's good fortune in this crisis is in its focus on retail rather than investment banking, and in the Bank of Spain's determined opposition as national regulator to the off-balance-sheet assets that turned toxic and sank banks elsewhere.
That still leaves Santander, which aims to increase net profit this year by 10 per cent to €10bn ($13.3bn), exposed to any weakness in key markets such as the UK, Spain and Latin America, and to the wholesale financing drought that is affecting the entire international banking system.
Even in these areas, however, analysts believe the risks are limited.
In Spain, for example, property developers, the borrowers most exposed to the country's residential property crash, account for only 6.8 per cent of Santander's portfolio of well provisioned Spanish assets.
Santander is a heavy user of wholesale finance - it needs more than a quarter of the €80bn that matures and needs refinancing for Spanish banks next year, according to one market analyst - but it has industrial assets to sell if needed.
Its senior executives, furthermore, helped persuade José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Socialist prime minister, to promise up to €150bn in asset purchases and state guarantees to keep the country's banks liquid up to the end of 2009.
"We feel comfortable with their [Santander's] liquidity position," says Maria Cabanyes of Moody's, the credit rating agency.
One concern is that Santander might have extended too much capital on acquisitions, leaving it vulnerable in a world populated by rival banks that have received emergency capital injections from their respective governments.
The latest deals, however, have only a small impact on Santander's core capital ratio - a reduction of 20 basis points in the case of the Sovereign deal - and senior executives say they will be devoting their time to consolidating what they have bought and rebuilding core capital from just under 6 per cent now to over 7 per cent at the end of next year.
Thereafter, the chances are that Santander, once an obscure provincial bank, will set out again on the global acquisition trail under Mr Botín or his successors.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Are we in danger of turning Japanese?

2008-10-21T04:41:00.000-07:00

Japan's stock market lost more than three quarters of its capital over two decades - it might be enough to bring tears to the eyes of even the most inscrutable investor.

'Pushing on a string'' might sound like a daft if harmless activity but I fear it will be seriously bad news for all of us if the phrase ever enters mainstream usage.
Devotees of the dismal science of economics use it to describe the point at which interest rate cuts and other attempts to boost activity - such as pumping billions into bust banks - fail to restore confidence.
For a Chancellor or Prime Minister to discover he is pushing on a string is akin to a sailor being blown onto a leeward shore and, seeing he is running out of sea room, discovering that the auxiliary engine will not start.
I first heard the phrase nearly 20 years ago when the Japanese stock market began its long decline from a peak of 38,000 in the Nikkei index, despite a series of increasingly desperate rate cuts. It came to mind again this week when the Tokyo market fell by another 11pc overnight to stand below 8,500 on Thursday. Losing more than three quarters of your capital over two decades might be enough to bring tears to the eyes of even the most inscrutable investor.
While we should always take a long-term view of equity-based investment, there is a limit to what human flesh can bear - or, as the economist John Maynard Keynes put it: "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.''
Here and now, the Japanese experience is a terrifying reminder that some stock market sagas do not have a happy ending - as I pointed out in this newspaper in August, 2007, when the credit crunch began to bite.
Again, in an article headed "Western banks sink in the shadow of the rising sun'' in March this year, I wrote: "First there was Northern Rock in Newcastle; now there is Bear Stearns in New York. With banks being bailed out by taxpayers on both sides of the Atlantic, no wonder investors have that sinking feeling.
"While government intervention has prevented either bank going bust, it might be dangerously complacent to underestimate the seriousness of the global credit crisis. At worst, we could be looking at a repeat of what happened in Japan 19 years ago. Then, as now, banks got into trouble with rash lending against what proved to be grossly inflated property values.
"Before the bubble burst, the ground occupied by the Imperial Palace in Tokyo was valued at rather more than all the real estate in California and the shares on the Nikkei index were briefly priced at more than all those in America.
"Bearish analysts say the main reason that the market has failed to recover is that Japanese banks were propped up by government intervention, which allowed huge losses on bad debts to remain unrealised. International institutions were not fooled and the guilty banks have been unable to borrow - or lend - on normal terms since then.
"Once confidence has been destroyed it is very difficult to restore. Without confidence, there can be no credit - at any price.
"Nobody knows what share prices will do next week or next year. That does not matter for most pension savers who do not plan to retire next week or next year. History strongly suggests the best returns will be received by those who wait for the odds to work in their favour. Selling now will certainly turn paper losses into real ones.''
That is as true now as it was then. Unfortunately, it is also a fact that shares in London have lost about a third of their value since then.
No wonder more people are beginning to worry about parallels with the Land of the Rising Sun - and whether its past may foreshadow our future.

Financial crisis is shifting power to Asia, says HSBC boss Stephen Green

2008-10-21T01:24:00.000-07:00

THE crisis consuming global markets is part of a fundamental shift of power from the US to emerging economies in China and the Middle East, according to Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC.

By Katherine Griffiths, Financial Services Editor Last Updated: 7:30AM BST 21 Oct 2008
Speaking at a financial conference in Dubai, the banker also condemned the financial model that has led to the crisis as "bankrupt".
The crisis, probably the worst since the 1929 Wall Street crash, will offer several lessons, Mr Green said, but added that the underlying trend of movement from West to East would "not be derailed".
"The rebalancing of the global economy towards Asia, home to over half the world's population, and its implications for the Middle East, is the shift that will affect financial markets most profoundly," he said.
He pointed to the implosion in sub-prime mortgage lending in the US as the flashpoint but added it was "far from the only villain in town".
"The complexity and opacity of certain financial instruments reached a point where even senior and experienced banks had trouble understanding them, let alone investors," he said.
Sub-prime lending exploded because bankers found ways to package up the debts and sell them on. Driving the process was Western consumption, fuelled by cash pumped into the US and elsewhere from developing countries, where savings surpluses have built up, Mr Green said.
The HSBC chairman also criticised the bonus culture at banks, "which has so often encouraged too much opacity and excessive risk-taking".
He added that the "high-leverage model of finance is bankrupt" and said securitisation of loans would survive. "You cannot bring the whole of the world's capital markets back on to banks' balance sheets."
HSBC, one of the world's best capitalised major banks, has refocused on Asia and developing markets after a disastrous foray into US sub-prime lending. However, problems at its US sub-prime division, Household International, emerged much earlier than at other lenders and the bank is seen as having weathered the storm well.
HSBC yesterday struck a £351m deal to buy almost 90pc of an Indonesian lender, Bank Ekonomi.

Nepotism?

2008-10-10T01:40:00.000-07:00

Diet 'juniors' and Japan's politics of descent

By PHILIP BRASOR

One of the busiest people on TV right now is Daigo Naito, a 30-year-old who dresses and gesticulates like a rock star while speaking in the tones of a narcotized 16-year-old. Daigo isn't a comedian, though his droning delivery elicits laughs, and he's not really a rock star, though he did start his show biz career with the intention of becoming one. His ubiquity is based on one thing: pedigree.
Daigo is the grandson of late Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, and his career as a TV star took off when Takeshita's widow gave him permission to use grandpa's name when selling himself as . . . whatever. For a decade before that, Daigo struggled to make it in the world of visual-kei, a rock subgenre whose musicians dress like manga characters and play sweetened heavy metal. He fronted a group called Jzeil (pronounced "jail") and recorded an album written and produced by superstar Kyosuke Himuro, but nothing came of it. As soon as he revealed that he was the grandson of one of the most notorious "dons" of the Liberal Democratic Party, however, offers for television work poured in.
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Progeny of famous people are as common in show business as divorce lawyers, but most "juniors" put in the appearance of having some sort of skill, be it acting, singing or weather reporting. Daigo has only the Takeshita name, which isn't his since his mother, Noboru's daughter, gave it up when she married. His blase-rocker act is meant to be an ironic comment on his respectable lineage, but there's no disrespect involved. Daigo owes his dead grandfather his livelihood.
Daigo could have become a politician, and he may run for office someday after his entertainment career dries up. As with show biz, the sons and daughters of politicians don't need talent or experience to join the "family business," and it's pretty easy. According to a recent editorial in the Asahi Shimbun, "the starting line for seshu (descendant) candidates is much closer to the finish line than it is for other candidates."
Since seshu candidates have ready-made local support and an existing political machine, their opponents have their work cut out for them. Over decades, the number of seshu politicians has snowballed, which means the government has turned into a club whose members possess the same narrow interests and values, which aren't necessarily shared by average voters. The Asahi says that the Lower House of the Diet is now about 30 percent seshu, while the Sankei Shimbun reports that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is almost 50 percent seshu. Eighty percent of Lower House candidates in 2005 who happened to be the children or grandchildren of national politicians were victorious.
The media has never ignored this tendency, but since the process that makes it possible is democratic in principle, criticism is muted. Besides, seshu politicians are by definition celebrities, which makes it more fun to cover them. The new Aso Cabinet, however, has provoked more than the usual concern since 11 of the 18 ministers, including Aso himself, are seshu politicians. Not only that, the last four prime ministers have been seshu politicians, with the most recent three either sons or grandsons of past prime ministers.
None of Junichiro Koizumi's forebears made it to the top, but he may be the consummate seshu politician. He is the third generation of his family to represent his district in Kanagawa Prefecture, and now his second son, Shinjiro, is being groomed for his seat, since his oldest boy has already gone the Daigo route and become an actor. Koizumi Sr.'s arrogant sense of entitlement even shocks some members of the LDP. Former Nagano governor and professional gadfly Yasuo Tanaka has announced he will run against Shinjiro, since the only person who can beat a junior is a celebrity.
In an interview in the Sankei, political analyst Taichi Sakaiya explained that the LDP's preference for less risky candidates favors seshu politicians, who attain Cabinet posts sooner than nonseshu politicians — and not because they start their careers earlier. The LDP contains competing factions, and it's difficult to satisfy all of them through strategic ministry appointments. No one in the LDP, however, objects when seshu colleagues are appointed before nonseshu colleagues who have been in the Diet longer. There is no "jealousy," says Sakaiya, who believes that Aso appointed so many seshu ministers in order to avoid intraparty strife prior to the next general election.
Juniors are also said to be insulated from everyday reality, which is why that reporter last month asked former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda if he had ever looked at himself objectively. Fukuda, the son of former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, had no idea what the reporter was getting at and uncharacteristically lost his composure. This goes along with Sakaiya's comment that seshu politicians tend to be incautious with comments because they are always surrounded by like-minded people, but the practice of shooting from the hip seems general in the LDP regardless of whether or not dad was a politician.
Nariaki Nakayama, who quit his transport ministry post after only five days due to outrageous remarks he made about Japan's largest teachers union and other things, is not a seshu politician, but his ascendancy in the LDP had much to do with his older wife, Kyoko, an Upper House member who achieved political stardom when she became the government's expert on the North Korean abduction issue. Supposedly, Nakayama believed his wife's favorable reputation gave him license to rail against things he felt strongly about.
Last week the pundits on TBS's "wide show" "Ping Pong" speculated that Kyoko was busy making the rounds of people her husband had offended and apologizing for his remarks, like a mother visiting the neighbors after her little boy misbehaves in public. You don't have to be a junior to be a spoiled brat.

Another one bites the dust! Vol.2

2008-10-10T01:25:00.000-07:00

La aseguradora Yamato, primera financiera japonesa en quiebra.

Efe - Yokio - 10/10/2008
Según la agencia local Kyodo, la compañía presentó hoy su solicitud de bancarrota a las autoridades niponas después de que la Bolsa de Tokio cayera en picado durante toda esta semana hasta acumular pérdidas de más del 40% desde el inicio del 2008.
La compañía japonesa, cuyas deudas ascienden a 269.500 millones de yenes (2.719 millones de dólares), pidió amparo a la Corte judicial de Tokio bajo la ley promulgada en el año 2000 para la protección de instituciones financieras con problemas. Esa ley permite que ese tribunal dé la orden de que se mantengan los activos de la aseguradora.
Tras el anuncio de hoy, Yamato se ha convertido en la octava compañía de seguros japonesa que quiebra desde el final de la II Guerra Mundial y en la primera compañía financiera que anuncia su bancarrota desde que la aseguradora Tokyo Life Insurance cayera en el 2001.
Yamato Life disponía de valores por un total de 283.100 millones de yenes (2.857,6 millones de dólares) y de pólizas de seguro valoradas en 1,07 billones de yenes (10.856 millones de dólares) a finales del año fiscal 2007, que finalizó en marzo del 2008, según el diario "Nikkei".

Japan Version Of Subprime Crisis May Be Emerging

2008-10-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

TOKYO (Nikkei)--Re-plus Inc., a rent guarantor, has gone bust amid successive real estate-related business failures, prompting worried industry officials to see the bankruptcy as heralding the possible onset of a Japanese version of the U.S. subprime loan crisis.
While the crisis has forced a large number of Americans to lose their homes, the officials warn that a similar consequence may be awaiting Japan.
Re-plus went down with liabilities totaling 32.5 billion yen. Although the sum is considerably smaller than the 255.8 billion yen left behind by Urban Corp. -- the biggest bankruptcy in Japan so far this year -- the rental home market is gravely concerned about the impact of Re-plus' failure due to its business model.

The presence of Re-plus has become noticeable recently in the market for property funds as the manager of Re-plus Residential Investment Inc., a real estate investment trust, or REIT.
Re-plus is thought to have the biggest market share in its core business of guaranteeing rents for homes. According to data released by the company, it had 600,000 guarantee contracts as of the end of June.
A rent guarantor pays rents for clients when they are unable to pay them. Demand for the service has grown sharply among people unable to find co-signers.
Re-plus receives warranty fees equivalent to half of monthly rents from clients in the first year and 10,000 yen a year in the following years.
As long as the payment ability of applicants for the service is accurately examined, the business goes smoothly. However, the screening of applications is "lax" at many guarantors, said an executive at a real estate agent.
Re-plus started running into financial difficulty around June, often failing to make payments to landlords on time. Although the company in August attributed the delay in payments to a computer system glitch, it failed to meet obligations at the end of the month.
On Sept. 24, Re-plus went under as a sharp increase in clients late on rents made it impossible for the firm to make payments to landlords.
A key question is why the delinquency of rents has increased so rapidly.
A large number of condominiums have been put on the market for rental homes because they had been on construction binges until last summer. A glut in the market for rental condos has allowed a large number of people to move in only with rent guarantee contracts requiring no security deposits, according to the president of a real estate fund.
The collapse of Re-plus shows that the market for real estate investment has grown sharply due in part to rent guarantors' lax screening of applications.
Another key question is what will happen to Re-plus' 600,000 clients. While they are unlikely to be forced out of their homes anytime soon due to legal protection, they will need to conclude new contracts with other rent guarantors or find co-signers.
As landlords have become reluctant to accept guarantees from guarantor service companies, they may well increasingly reject new lease contracts.
Because rent guarantee services are often used by people with low creditworthiness, Japan may witness its own version of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.
The failure of Re-plus casts a shadow over the future of Japan's residential market.

Translated from an article written by Nikkei staff writer Kazuhiro Kida
(The Nikkei Veritas September 28 edition)

Algunos indicadores de "deceleración" económica

2008-10-03T14:10:00.000-07:00

Unilever cierra la fábrica de Frigo en Barcelona y despide a 268 personas

La caída de las ventas envía a casa a 4.700 trabajadores de Seat

Continúan los despidos en el sector automoción
ERE en Bridgstone sobre el 64% de la plantilla

Las suspensiones de pagos se triplican en el tercer trimestre
Un estudio pronostica que las dificultades para las empresas en suspensión seguirán hasta 2010

UBS recorta 2.000 empleos

Vamos que nos vamos amigos...

Una de cal y otra de arena...

2008-09-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

Time for central bankers to take Spanish lessons
By Gillian Tett

Not many banks have emerged from recent events with their reputations intact. Santander might be the exception that proves the rule.
A decade ago the bank was barely known outside Spain’s business community or Latin America. Now it is emerging as one of the more savvy survivors of Europe’s banking storm.
Not only is Santander snapping up cut-price assets (such as the juiciest parts of Bradford & Bingley) but it has also avoided the credit horrors that have triggered the humiliation of so many other mighty European names.
And while that sunny vista might yet change – after all, not even bankers seem truly to know what their banks hold these days – Santander’s run looks doubly remarkable given that Spain is in the aftermath of a property boom.
So what lies behind Santander’s seeming escape? In part, the persona of Emilio Botin, its chief executive, who has a reputation for being extraordinarily shrewd. However, another more interesting issue revolves around the way that Madrid runs its banks.
One key factor protecting Santander from some of the global woes is the tough approach that the Spanish central bank has taken towards regulating its banks in recent years.
Earlier this decade the central bank in essence decided it disliked the idea of banks keeping vast quantities of credit assets off their balance sheets. It also quietly demanded that banks hold higher levels of reserves than international accounting laws required.
Consequently, it furtively “gold plated” – or rewrote – European Union rules to discourage Spanish banks from creating entities such as structured investment vehicles (SIVs). And when banks such as Santander embarked on an acquisition spree in Mexico, the central bank reined them back.
When the central bank initially took this stance, it looked pretty odd. After all, in the early years of this decade institutions such as the Federal Reserve were convinced that banks could hold less capital than before because innovation had made them less exposed to credit risk.
However, Spain had experienced a searing domestic banking crisis two decades earlier and its central bank was consequently risk averse. It was also more willing to be maverick than, say, the Germans.
None of this guarantees that Spain will escape the credit crisis unscathed. A domestic property bust is always painful.
However, Madrid’s conservative stance has helped to cushion the blow of the storm. And that highlights some interesting lessons. First, it shows some of the wisest financiers are those who have experienced shocks.
Second, Spain’s story shows it pays for small countries to challenge the dominant global consensus from time to time.
But third, the Spanish tale shows the benefit of having central banks involved in regulation. In recent years other European banks have also become uneasy about trends in the global banking world; look at statements made by Jean Claude Trichet, ECB president, last year. Yet Mr Trichet could never turn this vague alarm into tangible controls since the ECB did not oversee the banks.
However, as the storm grows worse in Europe’s banking world it is becoming clearer that this state of affairs will need to be reviewed. And one place to start any debate might be with an examination of why some banks are going bust – but some, such as Santander, notably are not.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Japan finds its model back in fashion

2008-09-26T09:34:00.001-07:00

By David Pilling, Asia Editor

When foreigners visit Japan, one of their most common gripes is the difficulty of obtaining cash from bank machines or paying for purchases with credit cards. Such basic obstacles to their red-blooded desire to spend freely and to spend often have been seen as emblematic of an anachronistic financial system that has simply failed to keep pace with modern times.
Now laggard Japan does not look quite so stupid. Whether by luck or design, its financial institutions have been relatively unscathed by the financial crisis that has felled some of the biggest names on Wall Street. While its adventurous foreign brethren were off on a lucrative, but ultimately disastrous, spending spree, most Japanese banks continued to make the bulk of their money from old-fashioned lending.
Now the tables have turned. This week, Nomura has picked up Lehman assets at seemingly bargain-basement prices. Mitsubishi UFJ will pay some $8bn (€5.5bn, £4.3bn) for a sizeable chunk of Morgan Stanley, one of the few US investment banks left standing.
Yet the quick reversal of fortunes has led to remarkably little carping. “They’ve been admirably restrained considering they spent 10 years with the Americans telling them how to run things,” says Richard Jerram, economist at Macquarie Securities. “There must be a deep temptation to say: ‘You really mustn’t manipulate the market by banning short selling. You really must let this problem work out rather than having a low-transparency rescue plan,” he says, referring to continued prodding of Japan to adopt a more robust form of free-market capitalism.
Part of the restraint is due to the fact that, in attempting to resolve the crisis, the US is practising more or less what it preached to Japan in the 1990s. Then, US officials told Tokyo, often in no uncertain terms, that Japanese banks must recognise bad debts more quickly and that the government should replenish missing capital with public funds.
“The serious complaint about Japan was how long it took them,” says Mr Jerram. “The good thing you can say about America is that they are barely a year into this and they are throwing absolutely everything at it.”
Teizo Taya, a board member of the Bank of Japan when that institution was being criticised for its supposedly unimaginative policy in tackling deflation, is not carping either. “They won’t listen anyway,” he says.
But he does argue that, by aggressively lowering interest rates after the collapse of the tech bubble and after the emergence of the subprime crisis, the US response may have been just as flawed as Japan’s more conservative tack.
Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, once famously urged the Bank of Japan to buy ketchup – in other words, any asset going – to stop deflation. But many Japanese officials privately argue that pushing interest rates too low was the cause of the bubble that has now exploded so spectacularly. They also point to the BoJ’s once unfashionable assertion – now being reassessed worldwide – that central banks should not limit themselves to targeting consumer inflation but should work out how to prick asset bubbles as well.
One senior BoJ official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday: “I’m not saying it’s possible to detect a bubble and to stop it from bursting. But there are some things you can do.” More, for example, could have been done to take the heat out of the housing market, he said.
Mr Taya says of US monetary policy: “The lesson they thought they had learnt may not be correct. In one sense, their policy was quite successful. They avoided an economic downturn from 2001. But they forgot about the side-effects of easy policy.”
Japan, says Mr Taya, has benefited from the natural caution of its institutions. “Japanese are different from US investment banks. US banks just bought assets with money that they had borrowed. That business model has now collapsed.”
But neither does he attribute the relatively healthy position of Japanese banks to wisdom. “Japanese institutions were lagging behind. I don’t think there is any positive aspect to this. Until 2005 they were busy writing down bad debt. Then there was a pause period. There was simply no time for Japanese institutions to follow suit.”
A senior Japanese finance official puts it more succinctly. “I think this was more luck than prudence.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Dos dólares por toda la división europea de Lehman

2008-09-26T01:56:00.000-07:00

El banco japonés Nomura compró la división europea y de Oriente Medio de Lehman Brothers por sólo dos dólares con el compromiso de mantener el empleos y hacerse cargo de los gastos de personal, según informa hoy el diario económico Nikkei.

Efe - Tokio - 26/09/2008

La entidad japonesa se gastará decenas de miles de millones de yenes en costes de personal para mantener los empleos de las divisiones de Asia, Europa y Oriente Medio de Lehman, de las que han pasado a hacerse cargo esta semana, después de que el 15 de septiembre el banco de inversión presentara una declaración de quiebra.
El acuerdo por el que Nomura se comprometía a conservar "una porción significativa" de los empleos de los trabajadores de Lehamn fue clave para que la casa de valores japonesa se impusiera al banco británico Barclays en la adquisición de la división europea y de Oriente Medio del banco estadounidense, según la agencia Kyodo.
Sólo en el caso de la compra de la división asiática de Lehman, incluyendo los costes por el banco y sus empleados, los japoneses tuvieron que pagar 24.000 millones de yenes (226 millones de dólares), de acuerdo con el Nikkei.
La compra de las tres divisiones le hubiera supuesto un desembolso de 700.000 millones de yenes (6.610 millones de yenes) en cualquier otro momento de bonanza de Lehman, según ese periódico.
La casa de valores nipona ya ha dicho que planea mantener los puestos de trabajo de cerca de 5.500 trabajadores de Lehman Brothers, 3.000 de la división asiática y 2.500 de la parte europea y de Oriente Medio.
Los gastos de personal le supondrán a Nomura un coste adicional al total de la operación de varias docenas de miles de yenes, según el rotativo.

El (des)gobierno de los bancos

2008-09-24T07:12:00.000-07:00

Ignacio de la Torre. - 24/09/2008
El Confidencial

Decía Keynes que es mucho más fácil para el ser humano equivocarse junto a los demás que enfrentarse a la multitud y decir la verdad. Realicemos pues hoy un keynesiano ejercicio de dificultad. Les invito a que me acompañen.
¿Les sorprendería saber que, entre los consejeros independientes de Lehman Brothers, figuraba la anterior responsable de la Cruz Roja americana y de las Girl Scouts de ese país? ¿Conocían que otro de los consejeros independientes del quebrado banco llevaba 23 años dedicado a la producción de obras de teatro en Broadway?* La mitad de los consejeros de Merrill Lynch no tenía experiencia en banca. Como nos recordó Peter Hahn en el WSJ**, el antiguo presidente del denostado Northern Rock era un periodista científico. Los consejeros “independientes” de ABN en el penoso tiempo que llevó a su adquisición, disfrutaban de una media de ocho consejos, manipulando su independencia con el resultante escaso tiempo y abundante retribución.
Además, en el consejo de Royal Bank of Scotland, que compró ABN con una prima de un 70% en una de las adquisiciones más disparatadas de la historia, figuraban cinco consejeros a las órdenes del presidente. Luego hacía falta que nueve de los once independientes se alinearan contra el presidente para frenar tal alocada operación. No ocurrió, y como consecuencia de la misma el RBS tuvo que realizar la mayor ampliación de capital de la historia de Europa, con fortísimas diluciones para sus accionistas. Respecto a UBS, sólo tres de sus doce consejeros tenían conocimientos de banca. De ellos, dos en banca privada. Tan sólo uno, el antiguo presidente Marcel Ospel, conocía la banca de inversión, aunque su experiencia no se centraba en los derivados hipotecarios que provocaron las pérdidas del coloso suizo.
¿Creen que esta mezcolanza de autores teatrales o girl scouts conocía lo que era un CDO? ¿Un CDO al cuadrado? ¿Un CDS? ¿Un CLO? ¿Un SIV? ¿Un conduit? ¿Un préstamo puente? ¿Un monoline? Yo no tengo tampoco claro que los consejeros con supuesta experiencia financiera supieran un ápice sobre estos temas. Y, paradójicamente, estas instituciones han perdido 600.000 millones de dólares en estos instrumentos que poco o ningún miembro del Consejo de Administración entendía. Soy consciente de que esta ineptitud e ignorancia no es el único responsable de todo este desastre. Los esquemas retributivos asimétricos, una mala supervisión bancaria, el modelo de originar y distribuir, y sobre todo la suicida política que llevó la FED durante 2003-2005 al mantener tipos a niveles muy inferiores a los que habría debido, entre otros, tienen su parte de culpa. Sin embargo, apenas se ha escrito sobre los muy diversos consejos de los bancos. De ahí el presente artículo. ¿Se merecían las primas que cobraban?
Hace tiempo leí una columna del Financial Times firmada por un corresponsal que había visitado una escuela de negocios norteamericana. En el jardín del campus se había topado con un instructor y un grupo de alumnos MBA que tenían que imitar consecutivamente diferentes sonidos de animales. Uno era el perro, otro el ganso, otro el pájaro… Preguntó por el objetivo de tamaño ejercicio. El instructor comentó que era muy útil para permitir que el alumno se pusiera en la piel de un “ente” distinto de sí y de esta forma poder “entrenar” la diversidad.
En este mundo de corrección política, y de imbecilidad generalizada, la diversidad mal entendida campa a sus anchas. Y aunque esa imbecilidad pueda provocar la quiebra de una empresa alimenticia, la bancarrota de un banco es harina de otro costal, por las implicaciones que una crisis bancaria genera en el conjunto del sistema financiero, y por extensión, en la economía. La mejor responsabilidad social corporativa de un banco es sobrevivir y seguir prestando dinero. Sobreviviendo, el banco realizará una gran labor a la sociedad, y para sobrevivir se requiere un consejo capaz. Diverso si se quiere, pero antes que diverso, capaz.
Y acabo este artículo con una reflexión. Leíamos la semana pasada que una caja española había despedido a unos directivos por conceder hipotecas que estaban resultando fallidas, ya que entre los objetivos de estos directivos figuraba aumentar la concesión de hipotecas, con independencia de si resultaban fallidas. Está bien que se despida a estos directivos, pero ¿no debería despedirse antes a los miembros de la comisión de retribución responsable de tan aberrantes objetivos?

* Board comes under fire, FT, 17 de Septiembre de 2008.
**Blame the Bank Boards WSJ, 28 de Noviembre de 2007.

Nomura ultima su reentrada en España con la compra de las actividades de Lehman en Europa

2008-09-23T00:22:00.000-07:00

Los bancos japoneses salen de su escondite. Después de años de reestructuraciones -tras la crisis y ola de fusiones y adquisiciones de finales de los 90 y principios de esta década- están aprovechando la coyuntura actual crisis para ganar poder en el nuevo mapa bancario. Lo acaba de hacer el gigante Mitshubishi UFJ, el mayor banco del país, con la toma de un paquete de entre el 10% y 20% en Morgan Stanley. Pero otros también están interesados en crecer. Nomura Holdings, el mayor bróker japonés, se quedará finalmente con los activos de Lehman Brothers en Asia, tal y como confirmó la entidad en un comunicado.Pero el bróker presidido por Kenichi Watanabe también está negociando la compra de Lehman International Europe, la filial europea del caído banco de inversión, que se encuentra bajo la administración concursal de PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) desde Londres, lo que incluye las actividades en España y del equipo gestor que dirigen Luis de Guindos y Juan Gich. Con oficinas en Castellana 41 en Madrid, Nomura dará un salto cualitativo en nuestro país, especialmente, en el área de banca privada y en la de fusiones y adquisiciones que dirige a nivel global Hiromi Yamaji.Fuentes del banco en Madrid declinaron realizar comentarios y se remitieron a la nota oficial del grupo sobre la adquisición en Asia de Lehman. Antes de verano, Nomura presentó en Madrid un fondo de capital riesgo de 200 millones de euros bajo el nombre de Thesan Capital, que está dirigido por Santiago Corral, el hombre fuerte en España del banco japonés y que cuenta con la participación de José Luis Macho, ex ejecutivo del grupo de alimentación Campofrío. "Han ofrecido el mantenimiento de los puestos de trabajo con las mismas condiciones de los dos años anteriores", dijo una fuente conocedora de los contactos entre Lehman y Nomura, aunque no obstante, no llegará a ser tan generosa como la retribución variable que percibían los empleados antes de la quiebra, como informó este diario la semana pasada.Nomura compite con Barclays en hacerse con los activos europeos. La entidad británica ha tomado ya el controla la filial de Lehman en EEUU y creará así un gigante con 26.000 empleados y más de un billón de libras en activos bajo gestión bajo la enseña Barclays Capital, según informó la entidad desde Londres. Bob Diamond, director general del grupo británico, dirigirá así un nuevo grupo capaz de rivalizar con las grandes firmas históricas de Wall Street como Goldman, Morgan, Citigroup o JPMorgan.Y Morgan Stanley también tiene dueños japonesesParalelamente al troceo de Lehman Brothers en el que participa Nomura, otro gran banco de inversión pasará a estar controlado en gran parte, hasta un 20% del capital, por otro grupo japonés. Se trata de Morgan Stanley, que durante la última semana ya tiene nuevos accionistas. El banco de inversión ha alcanzado un principio de acuerdo con Mitsubishi UFJ, el mayor banco de Japón, para que tome una participación que podría oscilar entre el 10 y el 20 por ciento del capital del grupo dirigido por John Mack. La entidad japonesa no tiene presencia en España, cuya filial ha sido presidida durante los últimos años por Luis Isasi.

Fuente: El Confidencial