TOKYO — In a bid to calm jittery markets, top Japanese finance officials discussed the country’s persistently strengthening currency at an emergency meeting Thursday, even as a beverage maker announced an overseas acquisition that took advantage of the soaring yen.
The contrast between the alarm among government officials over the strong yen on one hand and the opportunism of Asahi Group’s bold $1.3 billion deal for a New Zealand beverage company on the other underscores the mixed fortunes for Japan from its surging currency.
Considered a haven by investors, the yen has been driven to near post-World War II highs amid Europe’s debt problems and doubts about U.S. economic growth. The currency’s climb has wreaked havoc with Japan’s export-led economy and weighed on the stock market.
A strong yen hurts Japanese exporters because it makes their goods less competitive and erodes the value of their overseas earnings when repatriated into yen. Every time the dollar loses ¥1 in value, Toyota Motor loses about ¥30 billion in earnings per quarter, according to the automaker.
At the same time, the strong yen has bolstered the country’s purchasing power overseas, an advantage most visibly exploited by Japanese corporations that are seeking to expand. On Thursday, Asahi said it was buying Independent Liquor of New Zealand for ¥97.6 billion, or $1.3 billion, as the Tokyo-based beverage maker looked to increase its sales overseas to make up for a shrinking market at home.
Tsuyoshi Ueno, senior economist at the NLI Research Institute in Tokyo, said Japan needed to concentrate on the positives of a strong currency and deal with the negatives.
“Upward pressure on the yen is likely to continue for some time, and even if the yen were to weaken temporarily, there would be no change to the fact that every time the global economy worsens, the yen strengthens,” Mr. Ueno said in a note to clients. “To escape this cycle, Japan needs to build an economy and industry that not only survives a strong yen, but thrives with it.” Japan needs to foster new industries, like care for its elderly, and
seek opportunities overseas, he said.
Asahi, the maker of Japan’s top-selling beer, Super Dry, and soft drinks, said in a statement Thursday that it would buy all outstanding shares of Flavoured Beverages Group, the parent company of Independent Liquor, from the private equity firms Unitas and Pacific Equity Partners, adding the Woodstock Bourbon and Vodka Cruiser labels to its family of drinks.
Asahi’s purchase followed a bigger overseas acquisition by its rival Kirin, which said this month that it would buy a controlling stake in Schincariol, a Brazilian beverage maker, for $2.6 billion.
Despite the disruption caused by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March, Japanese companies spent $26.6 billion on mergers and acquisitions overseas in the three months through June, the highest quarterly volume in almost three years, according to Dealogic.
“When the yen is on an upward trend, it creates a favorable environment for M.A.’s,” Kotaro Masuda of the Institute for International Trade and Investment said in a research note, referring to mergers and acquisitions. “It also becomes possible for companies to buffer against currency risks by producing more overseas.”
Still, the response in Japan has been characterized more by panic than anticipation of any potential upside. And the prospect of Japanese companies’ shifting more of their production abroad does little to soothe the anxiety.
Two weeks ago, the Japanese government spent an estimated ¥4.5 trillion to stage a record intervention in currency markets, selling the yen and buying dollars in a bid to weaken the Japanese currency.
Though the yen fell slightly against the dollar following that move, it has again edged upward in recent sessions. Late Thursday in Tokyo, the dollar traded at ¥76.60, down 11 percent from a year earlier and 3 percent in the past month.
Over the past five years, the dollar’s value has fallen 33 percent against the yen. Analysts have questioned whether Japan can hope to keep the yen from rising, as long as global investors treat it as a haven. It may seem counterintuitive that the currency of Japan, a country burdened with sluggish growth and a huge public debt, is seen as a refuge from the debt crisis in Europe. But most of Japan’s debt is held domestically, yields on government bonds remain far lower than other industrialized nations and inflation is nonexistent, all positive factors for the yen.
On Thursday, a top currency official at the Japanese Finance Ministry met with his counterpart at the central bank, a signal to markets of government readiness to temper the rise in the yen. The government has staged a series of currency interventions in the past year with limited effect. One, conducted in March in conjunction with other members of the Group of 7 industrialized nations, came after the yen reached its post-World War II high following the earthquake and tsunami.
Though the officials who met Thursday did not reveal specifics of their discussion, the meeting seemed aimed at showing markets Japan’s determination to try to stare down currency markets. After the meeting, Vice Finance Minister Takehiko Nakao said that talks had covered “the yen and global financial markets over all.” Mr. Nakao met with Hiroshi Nakaso, the executive director of the Bank of Japan, the central bank.
Mr. Nakao did not say whether Japan planned another currency intervention, though government officials have said that they are watching market movements closely. Government officials have also urged the Bank of Japan to take measures to increase liquidity in the Japanese financial system, which also has the effect of weakening the yen.
Last year, a similar meeting between senior officials of the Finance Ministry and Bank of Japan, also following a spike in the yen, produced a joint statement warning markets against excessive currency volatility. No such statement was issued Thursday.
Meanwhile, government numbers released Thursday showed that exports continued to suffer from the strong yen. Japanese exports were down 3.3 percent in July from a year earlier, according to Ministry of Finance data, worse than the 2.4 percent decline expected by economists.
The strong currency is threatening to undermine Japan’s economic recovery just as industrial production rebounds following the earthquake and tsunami. Fears of a global economic slowdown are also hurting trade, weighing on the Japanese economy.
Reconstruction demand and a recovery in industrial output are likely to buoy the economy, said Cameron Umetsu, senior economist for Japan at UBS. “But the murky global backdrop still holds the potential to serve up nasty surprises for export-sensitive Japan,” he said.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/business/global/japanese-finance-officials-meet-to-address-yens-strength.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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