Nidec's ¥632.1bn writedown, regional bank tie-ups and a yen remark

Katayama Repeats Yen Undervaluation Concern After Bessent Call but Won't Discuss Levels Finance Minister Katayama said an undervalued yen is a problem in general terms after a 25 September call with US Treasury Secretary Bessent, and declined to discuss levels. She spoke at her post-cabinet press conference on 29 September.

What changed: Little: Katayama restated Japan's line. She described the call as an exchange of views on market developments, said she told Bessent that Prime Minister Takaichi is not a reflationist, and pledged close contact with the US Treasury toward orderly currency markets. She said Takaichi's separate call with President Trump did not touch on currency matters.

Context: Asked about long-term yields in the 3% range, she declined to comment on the numbers. She relayed that the JPMorgan chairman and the investor Druckenmiller, who visited Tokyo last week, did not regard the rise in US yields as abnormal, and said she shares that view. The same day's cabinet decision put ¥111.87bn of reserve funds to use across the Cabinet Office, Digital Agency, finance ministry and economy ministry to prepare for the food consumption tax cut and worker relief payments. Asked whether spending before Diet deliberation showed resolve to pass the legislation, she said the ministry was not discussing Diet tactics.

Japan's National Police Agency has signed 11 more banks to its public-private framework for tracking, freezing and recovering money lost to special fraud, taking the total to 20, and aims to widen operation to them from October 1.

Details: Prefectural police put queries to signatory banks online through the agency rather than bank by bank, and also make an early freeze request to the bank holding the account that received the stolen money. The framework began operating on June 1 with nine banks. The agency puts special-fraud losses at ¥325.74bn in 2025 and ¥181.62bn in the first half of this year, and says transfer-type payments made up 56.9% of losses by delivery method. Its release reports no recovery or freezing results from the June start, so the expansion is a wider access list, not evidence that losses have fallen.

Chiba Bank and Chiba Kogyo Bank have turned their March integration agreement into a finalised share-transfer plan to create Chiba Financial Group as parent of both banks. Their boards resolved on the plan on 30 September, and the holding company is planned for 1 April 2027.

The move: Holders of common shares in either bank receive one holding-company common share for each share they own. Chiba Kogyo's Series 2 Class 6 and Class 7 preferred holders get common shares on a formula tied to Chiba Bank's average closing price over the ten trading days from 5 to 18 March 2027. The holding company will have capital of ¥150bn. Chiba Bank already owns 19.12% of Chiba Kogyo's shares, and reported consolidated total assets of ¥21.21tn at the end of March 2026.

What to watch: The plan lapses if shareholders of either bank, or Chiba Kogyo's common shareholders voting as a class, do not approve it, or if regulatory authorisations, including approval under the Banking Act, are not obtained. A shareholder vote is scheduled for 23 December.

Mitsubishi Kakoki Kaisha and Tsukishima Holdings signed an integration agreement and a share exchange agreement on September 30, under which each Tsukishima share would convert into 0.88 Kakoki shares. Tsukishima would leave the Tokyo Stock Exchange on March 30, 2027 (planned), and the group would run under a new holding company, Mitsubishi Tsukishima Kakoki Holdings.

The number: Both advisers produced a market-price range of 0.79 to 0.83, so the agreed 0.88 sits above it. It also sits above Nomura's comparable-company range of 0.66 to 0.80. Kakoki is the smaller company by sales, ¥84.24bn against ¥148.95bn at Tsukishima in the year to March 2026, yet under Japanese accounting rules the exchange is a reverse acquisition with Tsukishima as the acquirer.

What to watch: Both shareholder meetings are planned for December 4. The agreement lapses if either vote fails or if antimonopoly clearance is not in place the day before the effective date. For the year ending March 2036 the companies target group sales of ¥350bn and operating profit of at least ¥30bn, including synergies of ¥50bn in sales and ¥8bn in operating profit. These are company targets.

SBI Global Asset Management and SBI Insurance Group signed a basic agreement on 30 September 2026 to merge, with the asset manager as surviving company. SBI Insurance's final trading day is planned for 29 March 2027, its delisting for 30 March, and the merger for 1 April. The terms: The draft ratio gives SBI Insurance holders 3.53 shares of SBI Global Asset Management per share, and the asset manager would issue a planned 87,615,969 new ordinary shares. The ratio is not final and will be fixed only in the definitive agreement. It sits at the bottom of the market-price range both valuers produced, and neither company obtained a fairness opinion from its adviser.

The catch: SBI Holdings controls both companies, so the deal is a significant transaction with a controlling shareholder under Tokyo Stock Exchange rules. Conflicted directors stayed out of board deliberations, and independent officers at both companies concluded the decision is not disadvantageous to minority holders. If the exchange decides the asset manager is not the substantive survivor, it would enter a grace period from 1 April 2027 to 31 March 2031 to meet standards equivalent to new-listing criteria. Board approval of a definitive agreement is planned by the end of December 2026.

Japan Display signed a final contract on 30 September 2026 to sell its Mobara plant in Chiba Prefecture to a Nagano-based manufacturer. It expects a consolidated gain of about ¥51.4bn, an estimate, with handover scheduled for 31 March 2027.

By the numbers: Japan Display puts the plant's book value at about ¥26.6bn, an approximation as of the handover date. It expects extraordinary gains of about ¥51.4bn on a consolidated basis and about ¥54.9bn on a standalone basis. Both are estimates, calculated as the sale price less book value and estimated transfer costs, and not yet final. It expects to book the consolidated gain in the fourth quarter of the year ending March 2027. The buyer asked that the sale price stay undisclosed, and Japan Display says the price reflects market value.

Context: Japan Display decided in February 2025 to end production at Mobara and stopped production in November 2025. After a basic agreement with Ichigo Trust in May 2025, it widened its review to other buyers and concluded that selling directly to the Nagano manufacturer was the best option on economic grounds.

Suruga Bank raised its forecast for net profit in the year to March 2027 to ¥44.0bn from ¥32.0bn and its annual dividend forecast to ¥80 from ¥60, but the upgrade leans on a one-off gain and a rate assumption.

What changed: Consolidated ordinary profit is now forecast at ¥56.0bn, up from ¥47.5bn. For the six months to 30 September 2026, net profit is forecast at ¥29.0bn, up from ¥17.0bn. The bank says new loan originations and higher interest rates are running ahead of plan.

The catch: A first-quarter change in how it values collateral on loans secured by whole investment-property buildings released ¥5.6bn of loan-loss allowances, which the bank calls a one-off. For the second half it assumes a further 0.25% policy-rate increase in January 2027, a planning assumption and not a policy decision. It also expects about ¥3.0bn of losses on domestic bond sales for the full year and assumes an effective tax rate of about 20%, lower than in its initial forecast.

Iriso Electronics' president has judged its internal controls over financial reporting not effective as of 31 March 2026, in a report filed on 30 September 2026 that lists six material weaknesses. The first concerns the top of the company, not a single overseas ledger.

What happened: An investigation committee of outside lawyers and accountants was set up on 18 February 2026 after suspicions of improper payments tied to labour-dispute handling at an overseas subsidiary. A wider third-party committee followed on 27 April, and its report, received on 28 September, found improper spending at an overseas subsidiary, quality-control problems at Iriso itself and premature sales recognition at an overseas subsidiary. Iriso restated annual reports for the years ended March 2022 to March 2025, among other filings.

The catch: The weaknesses include inadequate board and audit-committee oversight, internal audit short of staff and expertise for overseas subsidiaries, and a global whistleblowing system whose publicising and operation fell short. Planned fixes include a compliance-first policy in the charter and a group-wide risk assessment, with no timetable given. The assessment covered 11 of the group's 13 companies.