A picture illustration shows Japanese 10,000 yen notes featuring a portrait of Yukichi Fukuzawa, the founding father of modern Japan, taken in Tokyo August 2, 2011. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao/File Photo
Japanese companies are warming to mobilizing their mountains of accumulated cash for mergers and acquisitions but remain stubbornly resistant to wage increases, a Reuters poll showed on Monday.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has struggled for years to coax companies to lift wages, seen as the missing link for a sustainable growth cycle led by consumer spending. But deep-seated doubts stirred in part by Japan’s shrinking population have left them loath to take on higher fixed costs.
Instead they have hoarded their cash or, increasingly, begun looking to overseas acquisitions as a way to escape the limitations in their home markets.
“We might think about expanding our foothold overseas or corporate buyouts,” a manager at a wholesaler wrote in the survey.
