Behind the Money: KKR, Bain and private equity’s push into Japan

金钱背后:KKR、贝恩及私募股权对日本的进军

FT News Briefing

2025-12-24

21 分钟
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单集简介 ...

When international private equity groups first entered Japan at the turn of the 21st century, newspapers criticised them as vulture funds and politicians steered clear of public contact. Today, it’s a different story. Dozens of buyout groups have set up in the country and the establishment is courting them. The FT’s Tokyo correspondent David Keohane and Tokyo bureau chief Leo Lewis explain why there’s been a shift, and how private equity’s presence may rejuvenate Japanese corporates. Clips from Toho The FT does not use generative AI to voice its podcasts. This is a repeat of an episode published on Behind The Money, a sister podcast of FT News Briefing, on November 26, 2025. Follow Behind the Money on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts or Spotify. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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单集文稿 ...

  • What you're hearing is a trailer from an old Japanese drama.

  • It's called Vulture, or in Japanese, My colleague Leo Lewis,

  • the FT's Tokyo bureau chief, loves this.

  • Hear how locked in he becomes when we watch this trailer together the other day.

  • That is just magnificent, isn't it?

  • That's brilliant.

  • Okay, do you want me to comment on it?

  • Yeah, go ahead.

  • I mean, it was a big phenomenon at the time.

  • It was the water cooler conversation in offices.

  • Vulture was about a foreign fund that exploits struggling Japanese companies.

  • First, it was a TV show, and two years later, it was made into a film in 2009.

  • You know, it had a prime time slot, but it was also, thematically,

  • it could not have been more on the minds of people going into their nine to five jobs.

  • That's in part because just a few years before this,

  • some major American private equity firms had started to set up shop in Japan.

  • What's in the trailer is...

  • a series of scenes that depict the perceived problem with foreign capital which is that you know capital doesn't care about the nature of Japanese companies and there with sort of stacks of cash being thrown across the floor.

  • You know, the look of the thing was a little bit like, you know,

  • barbarians at the gate and kind of Wall Street and the idea that capital does kind of wicked things