Publisher's Message -- No Point Standing Still

Terrie LloydTerrie LloydBy Terrie Lloyd

There are still plenty of venture capital firms making moves.

As well as market entry consulting services, J@pan Inc magazine’s parent company, Japan Inc. Holdings (JIH), also provides advisory services for foreign and Japanese firms looking for investors and venture-mezzanine funds. Even now, JIH is active in the market and so is in good shape to be able to comment on the current trends in the venture capital and lower-end private equity markets. The prognosis is that while VC money for most sectors is still hard or getting harder to find, two interesting new types of investor have started emerging over the last six months

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Publisher's Message -- In the face of adversity, lead the way forward

Terrie LloydTerrie LloydBy Terrie Lloyd

As a global recession continues to bring down some companies, there are a few that survive, and even thrive.

Reading the media every day, you’d be forgiven for imagining that March 2009 was the beginning of the end of the commercial world as we know it. While it is true that we are certainly dealing with a major global recession, or possibly even a depression here in Japan, the fact is that people still have to live and eat, and as such the recession should be seen as merely grating upon rather than destroying the fabric of our economy. Of course, I’m an eternal optimist!

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Publisher's Message -- Recession Progression

Terrie LloydTerrie LloydBy Terrie Lloyd

Where to earn cash in times of economic woe.

Governments around the world are announcing the advent of a recession. At the time of writing, economists in Japan are saying that we’re already in one. The meltdown happened so quickly that many companies are still trying to come to grips with what the changes mean for them.

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Publisher's Message: Liquid Assets

Terrie LloydTerrie LloydBy Terrie Lloyd

Lehman’s dealmakers continue to slip through Nomura’s fingers.

What a tumultuous month October was—the world stood at the edge of a precipice in terms of a major recession, or possibly even a global depression, and November promises just as much action. We went from having four major independent US securities firms to now having none.

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Publisher's Message: A Role for Market Entry Consultants

Terrie LloydTerrie LloydBy Terrie Lloyd -- It is no secret that market entry consultants everywhere have developed a bad reputation for being expensive and simply telling you things that you already know. But the fact is that countries where most outsiders don’t speak the language, such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China, not having a bilingual person on the ground could lock you out of that market completely.

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Message from the Publisher

Terrie LloydTerrie LloydBy Terrie Lloyd -- The apparent lack of desire by Japanese youth to become entrepreneurs. -- There is much that can be done, and in fact, is being done, to encourage entrepreneurship as a career. Ranging from universities to tax breaks for venture capital, there are many changes taking place in Japanese society as the authorities start to realize they have to do something. A quick look through the METI website lists many press releases on what the government is doing to support new business owners.

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Message from the Publisher

Terrie LloydTerrie LloydThe surprise for most foreign businesspeople is that most laws in Japan are not clearly defined and thus the emphasis on doing lawful business is to meet the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of the law. This means one’s actions speak louder in a conflict resolution than one’s intelligence—a great way to level the playing field.

Not having clear rules to play by can be very disconcerting for foreign managers arriving in Japan. The frequent refrain is, “How do we know what we’re allowed to do when it isn’t clear what the limits are?”

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Message from the Publisher

Terrie LloydTerrie Lloyd Having a population that is able to screen out distractions means marketers have to come up with ever more devious, or in-your-face, means of marketing to their audience. My favorite place to see this marketing-versus-humanity evolution at work is in Shibuya. Whatever is new to catch your attention, you’ll see it there first.

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Message from the Publisher

Terrie LloydTerrie LloydAs many readers will know, apart from publishing this magazine, I also write a weekly column (48 times a year for the last 11 years) called Terrie’s Take. Writing this column takes dedication and forbearance—the dedication not to do a ‘couch potato’ impression on Sunday nights, and forbearance from the family not to intrude while “Daddy is writing his newsletter.”

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Message from the Publisher

Terrie LloydTerrie LloydAn interesting trend in IP -- Several weeks ago, two representatives of a major Japanese financial group came to see me with an unusual request: If we could start channeling the Intellectual Property (IP) into their group of investee companies so as to help those firms do better commercially. Their problem is that they have made thousands (literally) of investments and about a third of those investee companies wind up running out of gas and ideas.

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