Their competition was cutting back at the same time. Once again, the company seems to be doing similar things to what it did in 1990-91. They picked them up very inexpensively and kept 200 outlets and a couple thousand salespeople in Japan. As I understand it, they are the only non-Japanese financial services firm with a retail presence in Japan. They applied their digitized business design to those companies and made them much more profitable.
Cash is only one currency for acquisitions.
There are other ways to invest. It's also a good time to pick up talent. There's also the opportunity for limited acquisitions or shared facilities. You also suggest that a company might consider ridding itself of less profitable products or services during a downturn. A company should determine if it is providing services that customers don't really care about or that are unprofitable.