Buyout Funds Trippling Japan M&A Spending To Y250bn For Oct-Dec

Improving credit conditions appear to have revitalized buyout funds, with merger and aquisition activities targeting Japanese companies expected to jump a little over 200% on the year to some 250 billion yen in the October-December quarter, according to Nikkei. That quarter figure is getting a big boost from US investment fund Bain Capital LLC's acquisition of Bellsystem 24 Inc. for roughly 100 billion yen. The deal was annoucned in November. But the total for 2009 will likely be slightly more than 420 billion, down 60% from a year earlier and the lowest since the 110.7 billion yen of 2002.