Targeting the Czech Republic, for instance, it played a key role in the brutal restructuring of the local beer industry somewhat akin in terms of national emotions to a foreign firm taking on Japan's infamously inefficient rice industry. The vulture firms now swooping over Japan could well find that they've arrived at precisely the moment when economic reality overcomes national inertia. I sense a lack of confidence in setting their own destiny. But with this, there's a kind of openness to new ideas. Such ideas include letting badly run companies go bust and allowing foreigners to pick up the pieces.
Economists like to say that small actions can have a large impact on market direction.
Let's make a deal So far, foreign buyout investors have sealed just four significant deals in Japan. Many more are said to be coming, but dealmakers and analysts agree they will take time more so in Japan than elsewhere. The first deals involved banks. It's the first foreign private-equity investment in Japan's manufacturing industry. The showdown in Manila is all about class warfare.