Nidec's 844-case reckoning, and a trillion yen of new Japanese debt

Dentsu Group has committed not to tender its 61.76% stake in Dentsu Soken into VIC LLC's planned tender offer for the technology consultancy, a pledge that sets up a squeeze-out of the remaining public shareholders once the offer, targeted for early November, closes.

The catch: The non-tender pledge secures Dentsu Group's majority position through the offer period, but the tender offer itself remains subject to its own conditions; the pledge does not by itself decide whether the bid succeeds.

Oasis Management has lifted its stake in Tokyo-listed SMS Co. to 24.65%, up from 22.38%, after a single off-market block trade of roughly 1.6 million shares funded entirely from fund money. The Cayman Islands activist filed the change report with Japan's Kanto Local Finance Bureau on September 4, disclosing ¥38.5bn spent on the position.

Why it matters: Oasis says it is already pressing SMS on board changes, asset sales and delisting, with more proposals planned over the next year alongside talks on AI, pricing and portfolio strategy. A quarter-stake activist with an active agenda is a different shareholder than a passive index fund.

What to watch: Whether SMS's board responds publicly to Oasis's proposals, and whether the stake climbs further toward blocking-minority territory.

Nissha is giving back the majority stake in Vietnamese medical-device maker USM Healthcare Medical Devices Factory Joint Stock Company that it bought roughly three and a half months ago, after finding the target's books contained circular-transaction accounting that predates the deal. The Kyoto-based group told the Tokyo Stock Exchange on September 4 that its board approved transferring all the USM shares held by Nissha and subsidiary Nissha Vietnam Co., Ltd. to Võ Xuân Bội Lâm, a USM director who already holds 40% of the company; the price for the reversal is undisclosed.

Why it matters: An acquisition that barely cleared its first quarter is already being unwound over accounting problems that predate the purchase — a reminder that due diligence on a small overseas bolt-on can still miss things a subsequent review catches fast.

IYOTETSU Group, the Matsuyama-based transport operator, has pushed its stake in Shikoku Electric Power past 11%, and borrowed heavily to get there. A change report filed September 4 shows the holding rose from 10.17% to 11.24% of Shikoku Electric's outstanding shares, equal to 23,331,782 shares as of September 2.

Why it matters: A quarter of the ¥32.12bn spent buying the stake was borrowed, ¥8.35bn from Aozora Bank and Nomura Trust and Banking, and more than 10.26 million of the acquired shares are already pledged to those lenders as collateral. That is a leveraged, collateralized position building inside a listed regional utility's shareholder base.

What to watch: Whether credit conditions or share-price moves ever force a call on that collateral, and whether Iyotetsu keeps buying toward a stake that starts to matter for control.

SoftBank Group priced its 70th unsecured bond on September 4: ¥1tn offered mainly to individual investors at a 4.75% annual coupon over seven years, maturing September 16, 2033. The subscription window runs September 7 to 16, with payment due September 17, and the Japan Credit Rating Agency assigned the bond an A rating the same day.

The catch: Roughly half of the ¥988.5bn in net proceeds will simply refinance bonds coming due this month and next spring. The rest is conditional funding for the ABB robotics acquisition. If that deal is delayed or reduced, SoftBank says it will redirect the money to repay a bridge loan maturing in March 2027 instead.

Why it matters: A trillion yen sounds like fresh firepower, but roughly half of this raise is treading water on existing debt, and the acquisition-linked portion carries an explicit fallback plan. That is a bond doing double duty as a hedge, not a pure growth bet.

Sumitomo Forestry priced ¥243.5bn of subordinated bonds split across three ultra-long maturities running to between 2061 and 2066, with coupons as high as 4.343%. The Tokyo-listed housing and forestry group, which took U.S. homebuilder Tri Pointe Homes fully into the fold as a subsidiary, plans to apply roughly ¥241.4bn of net proceeds toward repaying part of the short-term borrowing it took out to finance that acquisition, with that application targeted by the end of September.

The catch: The bonds give Sumitomo Forestry full discretion to defer interest payments, a standard subordination feature. That flexibility is one reason bondholders are compensated with coupons well above what a straight senior issue would pay.

Japan's trade ministry opened public comment on September 4 on a draft revision that would let it investigate a critical-minerals supplier only when that supplier's exit risks disrupting Japan's supply, a narrower trigger than a blanket monitoring power. The same draft would require companies working on state-backed mineral projects to route cyberattack reports through the ministry to a Cabinet Secretariat cyber-coordination office.

Why it matters: This is METI's fourth revision of its core critical-minerals policy, and it pairs a new investigative tool with a new compliance burden: certified projects would face a fresh duty to report cyber incidents up a government chain, not just to their own security teams. The draft includes a safeguard that investigations and cooperation requests must avoid excessive burden on private businesses.

What to watch: Public comments close October 4 at 23:59 JST, after which METI can finalize the revision.

Japan's Specified Skilled Worker (Type 1) program held 425,961 resident workers against a cap of 805,700 as of the end of June 2026, a 52.9% fill rate nationally, Immigration Services Agency data show. The split across the program's nineteen covered sectors is stark: food service has used 98.1% of its quota, while road transport sits at 2.5% and rail at 2.2%.

Why it matters: The caps, reset by cabinet decision in January and running through March 2029, leave enormous headroom in transport and rail even as food service approaches its ceiling.