Acquisition Finance 2023

Trends and Developments

Market Overview

Year in review

The leveraged buyout market in Japan has remained active throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent transactions include a number of divestitures or carve-outs by Japanese conglomerates of their assets or non-core businesses to global and domestic private equity (PE) funds and other third parties. These transactions take a number of forms, including the sale of shares in subsidiaries (both private and public) that operate such non-core businesses or otherwise. Although the global pandemic resulted in a temporary slowdown in M&A activities, the market has made a robust recovery, led by foreign investors with surplus funds against the backdrop of a depreciating yen and a relatively low interest rate environment in 2022.