Toyota Motor Corp. will acquire Lyft Inc.’s self-driving technology unit for $550 million, as the Japanese firm steps up its automation ambitions with the newly created Woven Planet division, Reuters reported. The acquisition of Level 5 automation will also provide Toyota access to the U.S. ride-hailing firm's more than 300 employees of the essentially complete autonomy technology. For Lyft, the deal will allow it to become profitable sooner and takes away the burden and risk of developing a costly technology that has yet to enter the mainstream.
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Since the global financial crisis in 2018, Japan’s financial sector has become increasingly linked to global market moves as foreign investment funds pile into the country and domestic banks invest more in overseas securities, the BOJ said, Reuters reported. That has increased overlaps in portfolios between domestic and foreign financial institutions, the central bank said in a semi-annual report analysing Japan’s banking system.
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The number of bankruptcies in Japan’s eatery industry totaled 715 the last fiscal year, the third largest in 20 years, amid the new coronavirus pandemic, a credit research firm said, the Japan Times reported. The dour result for the year ending March 31 reflects 183 failures in the bar and beer hall sector, the highest since fiscal 2000 when comparative data became available, Teikoku Databank said in a recent survey report on firms that went bankrupt with debts of ¥10 million ($91,000) or more.
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Japanese regulators will heighten scrutiny on high-risk trades by domestic financial institutions in the wake of the Archegos fallout, the Nikkei business daily reported on Wednesday. Top investment bank and brokerage, Nomura Holdings, was one of the highest-profile casualties while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) warned of a loss of around $270 million. The Financial Services Agency (FSA) and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will scrutinise how financial institutions that incurred losses had been managing transaction risks, the Nikkei said.
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Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, the world’s largest pension pot, considers the impact of its investments on markets and isn’t distorting the country’s stocks, said Hirohide Yamaguchi, the newly appointed chairman of the fund’s board of governors, Bloomberg News reported. Yamaguchi, a former deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, said also that it was important to look at the fund’s long-term returns, rather than focusing on the short-term. He spoke in Tokyo at his first press conference since taking the role last week.
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The brokerage arm of Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group on Tuesday flagged potential losses of around $300 million at its European subsidiary related to an unnamed U.S. client, Reuters reported. The potential loss does not have any material impact on the business capability of the securities arm, or its European unit, Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Holdings Co Ltd said in a statement. It did not name the U.S. client. However, the revelation comes after global banks, including rival Nomura Holdings, were bracing for the fall-out from the downfall of hedge fund Archegos Capital.
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Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. joined a growing list of global financial firms to take a hit from the forced unwinding of bets by Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management in one of the biggest margin calls of all time, Bloomberg News reported. Japan’s largest bank warned of a potential $300 million loss related to a U.S. client, a hit that’s linked to Archegos. Lenders are just starting to tally the carnage stemming from the liquidation of more than $20 billion of positions linked to Hwang’s New York-based family office, which has roiled stocks from Baidu Inc. to ViacomCBS Inc.
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Japanese insurer Tokio Marine Holdings Inc said on Tuesday it currently expects no material impact on its results for the fiscal year starting next month as a result of its exposure to the fallout of Greensill Capital’s collapse, Reuters reported. Tokio Marine made the forecast in a statement the day after its shares fell 5.6% following a Bloomberg report that the Japanese insurer faced a larger-than-expected exposure to the insolvent British finance firm.
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A Tokyo-based restaurant chain operator on Monday filed a damages suit against the Tokyo metropolitan government for ordering business hours be reduced as a public safety measure during the coronavirus pandemic, Nikkei Asia reported. Global-Dining claims the order "is illegal and unconstitutional as it infringes the right to freedom of business" in the first such lawsuit anywhere in Japan. The company runs dozens of restaurants including the Gonpachi "izakaya" Japanese-style pubs.
Japan's central bank is poised to carry out monetary policy adjustments designed to increase its flexibility and make life easier for financial institutions, sources told Nikkei. During its two-day policy meeting from Thursday, the Bank of Japan will be looking at measures that would allow long-term interest rates to move in a slightly larger range of about 0.25%, plus or minus, versus 0.2% now. The idea is to maintain low interest rates while encouraging the market to function normally, giving financial institutions a chance to increase revenue.
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