1888PressRelease - Axia Consultants, the financial services company based in Tokyo, earlier this year radically overhauled its corporate Mergers and Acquisitions department. The improvements are paying dividends with business up 35% over the same period last year.

Demand for corporate mergers and acquisitions in Asia has been growing dramatically year on year since the end of 2012 with the bulk of this increased demand originating in Japan and China. Last year saw this demand set new records in terms of both mergers and acquisitions by Japanese companies. The wave of activity, highlighted by the US$16 billion acquisition of Jim Beam by the beverage giant and distiller Suntory, the US$21 billion acquisition of Sprint by Softbank and the merger of Tokyo Electron and Applied Materials valued at US$29 billion.

"The three examples, are of course highly notable given their financial scale, but it's the fact this activity has been an across the board phenomenon that makes it far more interesting. Less well known SME's in Japan have been responding to contractions in market size by their increasingly frequent use of mergers and acquisitions, to both regain and expand their domestic market share, while others have begun utilizing lateral mergers with Western companies to tap into faster growing industry sectors," observed Mr. Hideo Oshogi, Business Development Officer for Axia Consultants.