SoftBank revealed that it sold its Uber holdings sometime between April and July, at an average price of $41.47 per share. According to SoftBank, the average cost per share was $34.50, meaning the bank sold the Uber stake at a profit.
SoftBank’s move comes as its technology investment vehicle, Vision Fund, reported a 2.93 trillion Japanese yen loss for the June quarter.
SoftBank invested in Uber in 2018 and then again the following year, becoming the ride-hailing giant’s largest shareholder at one point. However, in 2021, the bank sold around a third of its stake in Uber and the remaining this year.
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What You Must Know About Tokyo Stock Exchange
It is worth pointing out Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) is the largest stock exchange in Japan, headquartered in its capital city of Tokyo. It was established in the 19th century. As of Sept. 14, 2021, the Tokyo Stock Exchange had 3,784 listed companies.
The country's largest stock exchange is operated by the Japan Exchange Group and is home to the largest Japanese giants with a global presence—including Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Honda. Furthermore, the Tokyo Stock Exchange offers specific trading information, real-time and historical index quotes, market statistics, and information about and from specialists.
Just remember that the acronym TSE for the Tokyo Stock Exchange should not be confused with Canada's Toronto Stock Exchange. Its acronym is TSX. As a reminder, at the peak of the Japanese asset price bubble in Dec. 1989, the Nikkei 225 index jumped to 38,916.
Following this, the Tokyo Stock Exchange's combined market capitalisation shrank dramatically over the next two decades, as the country's economy struggled with a recessionary environment and the Nikkei plunged in value.
Interestingly, when the above-mentioned stock exchange first opened in 1878, some of its first customers were former samurai. They needed a market to trade bonds that had been issued to them by the government.
BitiCodes and its capabilities
Have you heard about BitiCodes?
It is a complete crypto auto-trading software designed to help both beginner and expert traders make accurate and profitable trades. Importantly, BitiCodes offers quick as well as easy access to some of the most popular cryptocurrencies. With more than 560,000 current active users, BitiCodes has made its place in the industry as one of the most reliable as well as accurate auto-trading software.
Furthermore, with BitiCodes innovative technology, you won't need to have prior trading experience to make a profit. People should take into account that the software is designed to catch opportunities in the market, and thanks to its highly accurate technology, it's considered much safer than trading on your own.
Tokyo Stock Exchange and other major international exchanges
In addition to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), other major trading exchanges worldwide include the London Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and the Nasdaq. Each of them has specific listing requirements that owners must meet prior to offering their securities for trading. For example, some market participants have complained that over the years, the Tokyo Stock Exchange has become too large as well as complicated compared to other global exchanges. The country's largest stock exchange consists of five sections. For example, the first section lists the country's biggest companies, and the second section lists medium-sized companies. Combined, the first and second sections are called the "main markets."
Furthermore, there are two sections dedicated to startups. Notably, these sections are called the "Mothers" (Market of the High-Growth and Emerging Stocks) and the Jasdaq (which is separated further into standard and growth sub-sections). Lastly, the final section is the Tokyo Pro Market, which is for professional investors only.
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Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, Japan’s largest pharmaceuticals firm, announced on Monday that it would sell its Japan-side consumer healthcare business to US private equity company Blackstone Group Limited.
Takeda has been selling its over-the-counter assets in several nations in a bid to refocus its business towards the development of new drugs and reducing the debt it acquired from its $59 billion purchase of Shire Plc in 2019.
During an online briefing, Takeda chief executive Christophe Weber said that the company had decided to sell its Japanese consumer business unit due to the difficulty of continuing to invest in OTC businesses while keeping this new focus.
“My responsibility is to make sure that we don’t destroy value (for OTC businesses) but create value, and to create value we need to grow businesses and it’s not good to keep business and not invest sufficiently into that,” the CEO said.
Takeda stated that the proceeds from the sale of Takeda Consumer Healthcare Company would add 108 billion yen to its net profit, and that it expected the transaction to close by 31 March.
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Blackstone outbid competition from Japanese pharmaceutical group Taisho and other private equity companies to acquire TCHC. In a statement, the company said that the purchase would be its second acquisition in Japan after acquiring Ayumi Pharmaceutical Corp in a $1 billion deal in March 2019.
This new purchase will give Blackstone control over TCHC’s Alinamin line of energy drinks and vitamin supplements, and its Benza Block cold medicine.
Figures released by the Cabinet Office on Monday revealed that the Japanese economy shrank at its fastest rate in history between April and June, owing to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Japan’s GDP fell by 7.8%, or 27.8% on an annualised basis. This marks Japan’s third successive quarter of economic contraction – its worst performance since 1955 – having slipped into recession earlier this year. The fall also wiped out the gains brought by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “Abenomics” stimulus policies, which were rolled out in 2012.
The previous worst contraction in Japanese history was an annualised 17.8% drop in the first quarter of 2009 as the global financial crisis took hold.
Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute, noted the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant lockdown measures’ impact on sales as the prime cause for the contraction. “The big decline can be explained by the decrease in consumption and exports,” he said.
“I expect growth to turn positive in the July-September quarter. But globally, the rebound is sluggish everywhere except for China,” he added.
The struggle to weather the impact of COVID-19 has compounded Japan’s economic worries, with 2019 seeing sales tax rise to 10% as well as widespread damage caused by Typhoon Hagibis in October.
Japan’s severe economic downturn mirrors that of other nations. US GDP declined at a rate of 32.1% in the last quarter, while the UK fell by 20.1%.
Whether you’re looking for a (last-minute) summer holiday destination, a cultural city break or a foodie weekend getaway - Malta has it all! With history that spans 7,000 years, unique prehistoric temples, medieval towns and some of the oldest architectural designs in the world, on top of its breath-taking landscapes and clear blue waters, the small Mediterranean island is richly packed with things to do, see and discover.
The capital Valletta is brimming with grand architecture, hidden restaurants and picturesque back streets, but drive 8 kilometres inland and you’ll find yourself in the chic residential area where Corinthia Palace Hotel is located. Peppered between traditional Maltese houses, the hotel is far removed from the island’s touristy areas, whilst remaining perfectly connected.
The General Vibe
Opened in 1968, the 147-room hotel is the original flagship of Corinthia Hotels – a collection of five-star hotels worldwide. Stepping into the spacious marble foyer, you’re greeted with a glass of fresh orange juice and the instant feel that the staff will do their best to help you with any request. The rooms are traditional, elegant and they all come along with a balcony overlooking the hotel's extensive gardens.
The Restaurants
With three restaurants to choose from – Asian, fine dining or a relaxed al fresco restaurant serving summer favourites, Corinthia Palace Hotel caters to most tastes.
With a menu that is a colourful mix of dishes from Thailand, Japan, Singapore and China, the award-winning Rickshaw restaurant takes you on a gastronomic journey to the Far East. From pork, cabbage and water chestnut gyozas, through to Singaporean frog porridge – the food is exotic, innovative and absolutely mouth-watering.
For an authentic Mediterranean meal cooked with sustainably sourced, local produce, or a quintessentially British afternoon tea, cosy up in the elegant Villa Corinthia restaurant, housed in a stunningly restored century-old villa.
If you’re spending the day lazing around the pool, have lunch in Corinthia Palace’s al fresco venue - the Summer Kitchen. Set within the hotel’s lush gardens and overlooking the pool, the restaurant serves anything from fresh salads, grilled fish and meat, through to scrumptious pasta dishes and pizza cooked in their brand new wood-burning oven.
The Athenaeum Spa
With its stunning outdoor pool that calls for a relaxed afternoon of soaking up the sun with a good book and a cocktail in your hand and a spa that offers everything from a Jacuzzi and a sauna through to a steam garden, Corinthia Palace is the kind of hotel that you’ll probably struggle to leave after breakfast. The extensive list of treatments and procedures at the Athenaeum Spa includes manicure, pedicure, bridal and evening make-up, tanning and ‘healthy glow’ treatments, as well as rejuvenating massages, anti-ageing, body exfoliation and detoxifying body wrap therapies.
And if you get a sudden burst of energy after a day of relaxation or like to start your day with a workout, the gym at Corinthia Palace boasts state-of-the-art cardio equipment, a resistance area and a studio with morning and afternoon classes, including pilates, yoga, and more. Private training sessions and tennis lessons with a qualified coach are available too in the hotel's own tennis court.
Rates at Corinthia Palace Hotel start from €180/night withbreakfast for a double room and from €330/night with breakfast for a suite. For more information, please go to: www.corinthia.com/palace
To hear about FinTech and cryptocurrencies in Japan, this month Finance Monthly reached out to Kenji Hoki, Deputy Head of FinTech Promotion Support Office at KPMG Japan, who provides advisory services on financial regulations to financial institutions, as well as FinTech start-ups in Japan.
What have been the hottest topics in relation to FinTech in Japan in the past 12 months?
Not only in Japan, but globally, cryptocurrencies or virtual currencies have been what everyone’s been talking about recently. In Japan, they have been in the spotlight for a broad range of parties, including retail investors, FinTech start-ups, major financial institutions and authorities like financial regulators and central banks, while attitudes towards cryptocurrencies are varied across the sectors.
Retail Investors in Japan who trade cryptocurrencies are rapidly increasing and expanding their investments.
FinTech start-ups like a provider of personal financial management and marketplace to trade goods between users are seeking opportunities to incorporate cryptocurrencies as a mean of payment in enhancing their competitiveness.
Critical characteristic of the cryptocurrencies, when compared to traditional banks, is bypassing bank accounts to transfer money and the potential to disrupt their position in the financial industry. Large banks in Japan have plans to issue their own digital money, which can keep money flow via the account. In this context, Bank of Japan is conducting joint research with ECB on cryptocurrencies.
Japan has taken a very unique approach to emerging cryptocurrencies and has become the first country to give them legal status. The amendment of Payment Services Act (PSA) came into effect in April 2017, introducing new regulations that require virtual currency exchangers to register with the Financial Services Agency prior to setting up their exchange business.
What are the key recent developments in relation to cryptocurrencies?
Based on the amended PSA, 16 virtual currency exchangers were registered and are now subject to the regulations, while a lot of potential virtual currency exchangers are in the process of obtaining the status and are on the cue to register.
These companies include not only business operators that provide exchange services, but also various institutions, such as traditional financial institutions (banks, brokers, etc.), non-bank payment service providers, foreign virtual currency exchangers, etc. This increased interest to register highlights the potential of cryptocurrencies to become a business tool that can enhance the offerings of ordinary companies, which are not financial institutions.
New regulations have forced certain virtual currency exchangers that re not able to meet the registration criteria to close their business before the revised PSA came into effect.
As the cryptocurrency sector evolves rapidly, a study group from the Financial Council has started discussing a fundamental transformation of the regulatory frameworks in Japan - from focusing on entities like banks, securities companies, asset managers and insurance companies to functions like payments, finance and risk transfers, as well as redefining basic financial terms such as ‘money’, that will need adding ‘cryptocurrency’ to them.
Last but not least, global discussions on cryptocurrencies might affect the regulatory approach in Japan. In fact, coordinated regulations on cryptocurrencies are likely to be a priority on the global agenda for 2018. Discussing and considering how to face and use the cryptocurrencies, as well as fiat currencies, plays a new role in the future eco-system in the financial sector.
What would you say have been the best inventions of 2017 around the cryptocurrencies on an international level?
I would like to stress that these opinions are my own, and not the views of KPMG Japan.
Initial Coin Offering (ICO) could be a game changer at an international level, when it comes to shifting means of fund raising and hence, change the financial market/products (such as stocks) dramatically. A fundamental feature of ICO is to provide a broad range of parties an easier access (not easier money) to means of fund raising, in particular those who could not have had such access before ICO, including NPOs, start-ups, projects and even a divisions of a company.
These organizations and units who have had limited access to raise funds in the current financial markets can now benefit from fund raising via ICO and may facilitate innovation not only in the financial sector but in other sectors and markets too.
What have been the impediments on cryptocurrencies in Japan?
In facilitating business treating and/or using cryptocurrencies, many rules, other than regulations need to address cryptocurrencies. For example, accounting and auditing standards need to be reviewed to fit into this new environment and tax needs to be looked at too.
Furthermore, the regulations are still trying to keep up with the change. The above amendment of the PSA does not address ICO. As the sector expands continuously, differentiating digital currencies, including cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies, may be the next focus of the Financial Council and other similar organisations.
What does 2018 hold for cryptocurrencies in Japan?
Digitization in the financial sector will enter a new phase that will challenge the established systems. Banks will accelerate consideration or development of digital currencies which would be issued by themselves in order to keep the money flow in their hands.
Cryptocurrencies will be used more as a mean of payment from the current status, as opposed to an asset to invest in, while many FinTech start-ups that sell non-financial products/services are considering to add cryptocurrencies to their business model and expand the business in order to meet with users’ needs.
Token will be used more broadly to digitize existing non-financial products, while certain disciplines to sell Token without regulated intermediaries need to be introduced to the market. Distributed ledger technology might support the movement to replace certain goods like paper-based certificates with digital Token.
Any final thoughts?
In a digitized society, personal data and user interface is a critical source of competitiveness since every company, including financial institutions, has to customize its product and/or services to meet their users’ needs.
Meanwhile, digitization tends to remove the process of intermediation to deliver the products/services and payment, and bring old-fashioned processes to exchange directly between end-users.However, there’s the possibility of it falling apart both physically and electronically.
Until recently, it was impossible to transfer monetary value without trusted intermediaries and repositories who use expensive IT system and comply with strict regulations. However, distributed ledger technology enables the end user to do so directly by using cryptocurrencies as a mean of payment as well as Token as a digitized product/asset.
Financial authorities need to face that regulating intermediaries to be bypassed is not appropriate any longer in protecting users and markets.
Financial institutions need to know the above irreversible transformation and change their business model fundamentally and rapidly in order to keep up with an environment where personal data and user interface move to platformers to provide marketplace to users to exchange goods/services and monetary value instead of intermediaries.
E-mail: kenji.hoki@jp.kpmg.com
World stock markets have had a positive start to 2018, signalling a strong year for economic growth ahead.
Forefront in the optimism is Japan, whose stocks increased by over 3%—bringing it to nearly its highest in 26 years. Leading the rally were energy and financials stocks.
This comes after US stock markets closed last night with another record high.
What this means for Japan
Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange jumped to its highest since 1991, rising by 2.1%. The Nikkei, short for Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average and the leading and most-respected index of Japanese stocks, rose by 2.6%.
The Nikkei stock average surged above 20,000—something it has done before, but has not been able to sustain in the past.
The anticipated market rally in 2018 will commemorate the longest winning streak since 1989, when during the Japanese asset price bubble, the Nikkei gained for the 12th straight year.
"With a global economic expansion, Japanese companies will likely keep double-digit growth," said Norihiro Fujito, senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co.
Analysts have said that the expected yen’s weakness, combined with the upbeat economic outlook, means Japanese companies will be aided in posting another record profit in the new year.
Despite the good news, analysts have also warned of a risk of volatility, with Senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities Co., Yutaka Miura saying: "Although the weather is fine, the waves are high... there will be scattered rain."
Describing the surge, Miura also said: "More overseas market players flocked to the market in the afternoon amid hopes for higher (Tokyo) stock prices this year."
How the US plays a part
Analysts have also forecasted the dollar to trade between ¥95 and ¥120 in 2018, compared with around ¥113 in late December.
Japanese companies such as Toyota and Sony depend heavily on the US market. Construction machinery manufacturer Komatsu, for example, will receive a boost thanks to the US tax overhaul legislation enacted in late 2017.
A potential defeat of Trump's Republicans in the US midterm election in November will likely start to gradually be factored in by investors, with the Nikkei possibly dropping below the 20,000 line.
Mizuho’s Miura concludes: "Following the passage of the tax reform bill, political conflicts between Republicans and Democrats will become clearer toward the midterm elections,” adding: “The conflicts may hamper Trump's efforts to push through other policies such as his long-promised plan to boost investment in infrastructure which is scheduled to be announced in January.”
While Apple reportedly struggles to get the iPhone X off its feet and into the market, stumbling on obstacles it knew would come about, such as developing proper facial recognition and delivering on its aggressive production schedule, global stock markets are fluctuating on the back of several factors, from the disastrous hurricanes to bad European weather and Brexit talk. Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas are still ahead of us however.
Here Lee Wild, Head of Equity Strategy at Interactive Investor, provides an overview of the current global stock economy, as US markets and Japan’s Nikkei put London into perspective:
“The mood on many global stock markets might well be described as exuberant, but not irrational. Yes, it took less than six weeks for the Dow Jones to add the last 1,000 points to top 23,000, but latest US company quarterly earnings are beating expectations - look at IBM's fightback overnight - and president Trump's tax plans could still deliver a boost to the bottom line.
“Japan's Nikkei has just hit a two-decade high, but exports there have risen for a tenth straight month amid demand for Japanese technology.
“That puts what's happening in London into perspective. Investors are right to be concerned about a recent spate of high-profile profit warnings, and Brexit presents its own set of special circumstances, but many companies are delivering strong results and valuations are not excessive.
“Of course, the market will correct at some point. Chatter has picked up in recent weeks following profit warnings from blue-chips GKN, Mondi, ConvaTec and Merlin, but this bunch are not a fair indicator of the market as a whole.
“Unilever's highly-rated shares have come off the boil as bad weather affected sales of its Magnum and Ben & Jerry's ice creams in Europe during the third-quarter, while hurricanes in Florida and Texas held back the Americas. However, underlying sales in emerging markets still grew 6.3% and volumes were up. With just a few months of the financial year left, annual group underlying sales are still expected to grow 3-5% and profit margins improve.
“Don't be surprised to see a pullback between now and Christmas in some markets which have raced ahead this year, but it's unlikely to be the crash everyone is predicting. While inflation is currently outstripping wages growth, the UK unemployment rate is at its lowest since 1975 and any small rise in interest rates will not pull the rug from under this market.”
