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 Charles Knapp and the British gambler Terry Ramsden launched a takeover assault on Minebea last autumn, there was never any doubt which way the Japanese financial community would jump. "They circled the wagons against Knapp," said one foreign banker in Tokyo. "He could not find a single Japanese bank or securities house to help in any capacity with his bid."