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BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 2, 2014

Dai-ichi Life edges closer to acquisition of major U.S. insurer

Dai-ichi Life Co. is in advanced talks to buy U.S. insurer Protective Life Corp., in a deal likely to be worth over $5 billion, making it the biggest acquisition by a Japanese insurer yet.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 26, 2013

Sumitomo Life eyes stake in Bank Negara's insurance unit

Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. is among companies preparing to bid for a stake in the life insurance unit of PT Bank Negara Indonesia, according to two sources.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 21, 2013

Opinion divided on life term without parole

A 44-year-old man serving a life sentence in a prison in the Chugoku region believes that continuing to live a respectable life is the only atonement he can make for the families of the two people he killed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 7, 2022

‘Mika in Real Life’: Emiko Jean tackles parenthood, love and self-acceptance

A woman looking to connect with her long-lost daughter (with a very attractive adoptive father) may sound like a rom-com premise, but the author delves into heavy themes in her adult debut.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 10, 2019

'Five Million Dollar Life': Assessing the value of a single life

The weight of expectations — from family, friends, community — can be tough on any young person. Now imagine those people once paid $5 million to save your life.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Oct 23, 2016

YouTube channel Life Where I'm From explores Japan from a kid's perspective

Greg Lam's YouTube channel Life Where I'm From started one morning with a simple idea.
BUSINESS
Oct 23, 2015

Top life insurers face second-half obstacles to returns on investment

Japan's biggest life insurers face hurdles wherever they seek returns in the fiscal second half, as Bank of Japan debt buying depresses local yields, the yen shows signs of strength and currency hedging costs soar.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 27, 2022

Citing pandemic, seven Japanese life insurers incur April-September loses

Insurance payments ballooned as life insurers distributed hospitalization benefits to a wide range of policyholders infected with the coronavirus.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 18, 2022

Life expectancies diverged in pandemic's second year, study says

Because governments have counted COVID-19 statistics in different ways, researchers have sought to give a clearer picture of the pandemic's true impact.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 2019

'Life for Sale': Yukio Mishima's comically psychedelic take on the adventure novel

'Life for Sale' — first serialized in Weekly Playboy in 1968 — was, for long years, dismissed as mere 'entertainment.' Yet the surprising bestseller is a terrific example of Mishima's fecund imagination at its most free-wheeling and unfettered best.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jul 20, 2017

Japan's life expectancy increases by 4.2 years over quarter century

A research study finds that average life expectancy in Japan has increased to 83.2 years from 79.0 years during the quarter-century period, but the gap between prefectures has widened.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 12, 2017

'Life' provides the chills of a sci-fi horror

Hot and humid Japanese summers call for kaidan, scary stories that send shivers down the spine. In the days before we had air conditioning, kids would gather around after dinner to tell and listen to those terrifying tales in an effort to chill out with genuine chills.
The $8.2 billion deal is the largest overseas acquisition by a Japanese insurer to date and the second major transaction announced by Nippon Life this year.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 11, 2024

Nippon Life to buy Resolution in $8.2 billion deal as it pursues U.S. growth

The deal is the largest overseas acquisition by a Japanese insurer to date and the second major transaction announced by Nippon Life this year.
Hiroshi Shimizu (left), president of Nippon Life Insurance, and Satoshi Asahi, vice president and future president, shake hands after a news conference Wednesday in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 23, 2024

Nippon Life’s $12 billion acquisition spree is just beginning

Having committed to pouring billions into a pair of global insurers, the firm is now turning to asset managers, as it seeks to diversify business at home and abroad.
Nippon Life Insurance will focus purchases on 30-year JGBs, with the current yield of above 1.8% "good in terms of absolute level," a representative for the insurer said at a recent briefing.
BUSINESS / Markets
Oct 27, 2023

Japan's life insurers to boost JGB buying but wary of policy shift

Nippon Life, Dai-Ichi Life and Meiji Yasuda Life were among those who said they aimed to buy the longest-dated JGBs amid the highest yields in a decade.
Nippon Life Insurance, Japan’s largest insurer by assets, will buy $250 million worth of convertible notes and $300 million of preferred securities issued by TCW Group.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 12, 2024

Nippon Life ramps up global push with $550 million TCW deal

The announcement comes just a day after Nippon Life agreed to buy Bermuda-based Resolution Life Group Holdings for about $8.2 billion.
An elderly couple at a shrine in Tokyo in 2020
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jul 28, 2023

Japan's average life expectancy continued to fall in 2022

The decline for both men and women were "largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic," a ministry official said.
A decline in COVID-19-caused deaths likely helped boost the average life expectancy for Japanese men and women to rise for the first time in three years in 2023.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 26, 2024

Japan's average life expectancy rises for first time in three years

The rise in life expectancy may possibly be a reflection of a drop in fatality rates for COVID-19 patients.
A fight over Benefit One is the latest in a growing number of takeover deals in Japan, spurred in part by the Tokyo Stock Exchange pushing for improved corporate governance.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 8, 2024

Dai-ichi Life gets Pasona's nod on Benefit One acquisition

The agreement with Pasona Group, which owns 51.16% of Benefit One, is crucial for Dai-ichi to win the battle against digital health care provider M3.
Founded in 1879, Tokio Marine was Japan's first nonlife insurance company and it has since expanded into life insurance and now has a presence in 46 countries besides Japan.
BUSINESS
Oct 18, 2024

Tokio Marine pauses sale of Southeast Asia life insurance business, sources say

The delay appears to be due to the firm's dispute with a Malaysian partner.
Hiruzen Kougei employee Moeko Hirao, craft brewer “Sugichan” and furry friend Tsubu help out with the tomato harvest at 6:37 a.m.
LIFE / Travel / Longform
Oct 16, 2023

The farmer's intern: A month in the Japanese countryside

Escaping the chaos of Tokyo for a month, our writer heads to rural Okayama Prefecture and discovers the delights of natural farming.
Nippon Life Insurance Chairperson Yoshinobu Tsutsui is set to become the next head of the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, in May next year.
BUSINESS
Dec 17, 2024

Nippon Life chair to become head of Japan's main business lobby

Yoshinobu Tsutsui is set to be the first chairperson of the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, from the financial industry.

Longform

Visitors to Kyoto walk along a street near Kiyomizu Temple in April. A popular tourist spot, Kyoto has seen what locals feel to be an overwhelming amount of tourists in 2024.
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