Search - company

 
 
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2000

Japan's missing management

The failure of the department store operator Sogo Co. is a typical case of corporate governance gone awry. It has exposed some of the old problems in Japanese-style management, relations between main creditor banks and corporate clients, and bank regulation by the Finance Ministry. The incident offers...
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2000

Bargain-hunters swamp Sogo store

More than 6,000 people lined up Saturday morning in front of Sogo's Tama store in Western Tokyo, one of the branches that ailing department store operator Sogo Co. is shutting down, to snap up bargains in its final sale.
COMMUNITY
Aug 20, 2000

A decade of anecdotes to order

There are books about spending time in Japan, written in the main by Alice-in-Wonderlands who believe a short stretch makes them authoritative on all things Japanese. And there are books about Japan. Bruce McCormack's "Tokyo Notes and Anecdotes: Natsukashi" falls into this second, far more recommendable,...
BUSINESS
Aug 19, 2000

McDonald's establishes discount trend that other shops are forced to follow

Pop into a McDonald's in Tokyo's business district on any weekday and you'll find a crowd of salaried workers.
BUSINESS
Aug 18, 2000

Panel to mediate in disputes over Net domain names

The Arbitration Center for Industrial Property on Oct. 19 will begin arbitration services to resolve ownership disputes over Internet domain names, association officials said Thursday.
JAPAN
Aug 17, 2000

War archives prove draw for everyday people

Nowadays, scholars are not the only ones poring through the archives of the library at the Defense Agency's National Institute for Defense Studies in Tokyo's Meguro Ward.
BUSINESS
Aug 17, 2000

Seibu scheme brings in 108 billion yen

In an effort to reduce interest-bearing debts, Seibu Department Stores Ltd. said Wednesday it raised 108.1 billion yen by securitizing its flagship store in Tokyo's Ikebukuro.
BUSINESS
Aug 17, 2000

Tokyo department stores take slump into fifth month

Sales at department stores in Tokyo's 23 wards in July fell 5.6 percent from a year earlier to 205.8 billion yen, down for the fifth consecutive month, the Japan Department Stores Association said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 16, 2000

Motorcycle makers gear up to tackle domestic slump

Despite brisk business in the global market, Japanese motorcycle makers have for years watched their domestic sales slide.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 16, 2000

The 'third way' goes via Japan

CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY IN MODERN JAPAN, edited by Ian Inkster and Fumihiko Satofuka. 2000, I.B. Tauris, 39.50 British pounds / St. Martin's Press, $59.50. THE JAPANESE AND EUROPE: Images and Perceptions, by Bert Edstrom. Japan Library, 35 British pounds / $55. In less than 150 years, Japan has changed...
COMMENTARY
Aug 15, 2000

LDP faces the ethics test

Kimitaka Kuze was recently forced to resign as chairman of the Cabinet-level Financial Reconstruction Commission for receiving illegal benefits and payments from companies. This dealt a heavy blow to the credibility of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and stirred a strong sense of distrust in Japanese politics...
JAPAN
Aug 12, 2000

Not our fault: health ministry

The Health and Welfare Ministry on Friday denied responsibility for the widespread use of imported dura mater -- it estimates 200,000 transplants of the human tissue have taken place nationwide -- which has been linked to the contraction of the deadly Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
BUSINESS
Aug 12, 2000

Australia to export Japanese berries

An Australia-based strawberry producer announced Friday that it will sell Australia-grown Japanese-variety strawberries to Japan.
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2000

Sony plans to offer content for CS digital broadcasts

Sony Corp. plans to provide content designed for Japan's next-generation communications satellite digital broadcasting system to be launched next summer, Sony officials said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2000

Honda cites strong yen in profit drop

Honda Motor Co. on Thursday reported consolidated pretax profits of 101.7 billion yen for the first quarter of fiscal 2000, down 15.9 percent from the same period last year.
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2000

Diamond Power wins MITI contract

In a move to facilitate competition in the power industry, a yearlong contract with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry was awarded Thursday to Diamond Power Corp. -- an affiliate of Mitsubishi Corp. -- to supply electricity to MITI's main building and its annex in Tokyo's Kasumigaseki district....
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2000

PCCW to take 81% stake in Jaleco

Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd., a Hong Kong-based multimedia company, will pay 27 billion yen to acquire an 81 percent stake in Jaleco Ltd., a Japanese video game software maker, senior officials of the firms announced Thursday.
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2000

Rohto eyedrops targeted in 100 million yen extortion

OSAKA -- Major drugmaker Rohto Pharmaceutical disclosed Wednesday that it has received letters claiming its eyedrops would be tampered with unless it pays 100 million yen in cash.
BUSINESS
Aug 9, 2000

NTT East planning speedy DSL service

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corp. is planning to provide its integrated services digital network subscribers with a line that is more than 10 times faster than ISDN lines by the end of fiscal 2000, company sources said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 9, 2000

6.23 million people lost or quit jobs in '99

Some 6.23 million workers, or 15 percent of Japan's workforce, lost or quit their jobs in 1999, down 0.1 percentage points from the previous year, according to the results of a Labor Ministry survey released Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

Rightists kill two gangsters in central Tokyo shooting

Two gangsters were shot and killed and five others were injured, one seriously, during a flareup in a rightist group's office Monday afternoon in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?