Business sentiment at big Japanese manufacturers turned positive for the first time this year and service-sector morale hit a five-month high, the Reuters Tankan poll showed, as the economy continued to improve from a COVID-led recession, Reuters reported. Wednesday's monthly poll, which tracks the Bank of Japan's closely watched quarterly tankan survey, found that manufacturers are also upbeat about the coming three months, while service-sector morale was seen down a tad.
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Mizuho Financial Group Inc. will buy U.S. M&A advisory firm Greenhill & Co Inc. for $550 million including debt, the companies said on Monday, as Japan's No. 3 lender eyes a bigger share of the world's largest investment-banking fee pool, Reuters reported. The $15-per-share offer represents a premium of 121% to Greenhill's last closing price. Its shares had dropped nearly 40% over the 12 months till Friday's close as high interest rates weighed on dealmaking activity.
Japan’s latest inflation figures due Friday are likely to cement the view among some economists that the central bank will have to bump up its price forecasts, a factor that may fuel speculation of policy adjustment to come as soon as July this year, Bloomberg News reported. Growth in consumer prices excluding fresh food is expected to have re-accelerated in April after a recent cooling. Meanwhile, a deeper measure of the trend that also excludes energy costs is expected to reach its highest level in 41 years, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
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Japan’s imports fell for the first time in more than two years as commodity prices softened, cushioning the impact from a global economic slowdown that is weighing on exports, Bloomberg News reported. The value of imports decreased 2.3% from a year earlier in April, led by a decline in crude oil and liquid natural gas shipments, the finance ministry reported Thursday. The reading turned negative for the first time since January 2021, and was worse than analysts’ forecast of a 0.6% decline.
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Japan's government and the central bank on Monday held a fresh round of discussions on the role each should play in achieving sustained wage hikes aimed at eliminating the risk of the country returning to deflation, Reuters reported. The meeting of the government's top economic council focused on whether recent rises in inflation and wage growth suggest Japan is approaching a sustained exit from deflation. "While there have been some positive signs in recent data, we must ensure they are stable and sustainable so that Japan won't revert to deflation," the Cabinet Office told the meeting.
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Japan's wholesale inflation slowed for a fourth straight month in April as rises in raw material costs moderated, data showed on Monday, suggesting that consumer inflation will begin to ease back towards the central bank's 2% target, Reuters reported. The data may diminish market expectations that broadening inflationary pressure will prod the Bank of Japan to seek an early exit from ultra-low interest rates.
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Several Bank of Japan (BOJ) board members said the central bank must be vigilant to the risk of inflation accelerating more than expected, minutes of the March policy meeting showed on Monday, Reuters reported. A few of the nine-member board also said they saw some "positive signs" emerging in Japan that suggest the economy was making progress towards achieving the BOJ's 2% target, the minutes of the March 9-10 meeting showed. The board debated how companies were continuing to hike prices to pass on rising raw material costs, and price increases broadening to services, the minutes showed.
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A Japanese hotel chain, once at the center of a bidding war between US private equity firms Blackstone Inc. and Lone Star Funds, faces a reckoning with its creditors, Bloomberg News reported. Unizo Holdings Co. became the first Japanese company to default on its bonds in six years when it filed for a court-supervised restructuring in April. The firm, which has hotels and office buildings, said it didn’t have the money to pay debt worth 10 billion yen ($72.8 million) maturing in May. Several of the country’s regional banks warned they may not get repaid.
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The Bank of Japan indicated it has more confidence in much-awaited wage increases for this fiscal year, a shift that is likely to keep fueling market speculation over policy adjustments this year, Bloomberg News reported. “It is highly likely that the growth rate of scheduled cash earnings will increase clearly this year,” the central bank said in its full quarterly economic report released Monday.
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Japan's factory activity contracted for the sixth straight month in April, but the details of a private survey released on Monday showed the manufacturing sector was edging towards stabilisation amid a slower decline in new orders, Reuters reported. The final au Jibun Bank Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index was up slightly at 49.5 in April from March's 49.2, and matched the flash reading.
New orders contracted at the softest pace since July while remaining below the 50.0 threshold for a tenth consecutive month as inbound demand stabilised moderately.
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