The Kaisho Read Online Free PDF Page B

in recent years turned from being a valuable asset to a dangerous liability. All major keiretsu in Japan were either owned by or folded into a commercial bank. In Sato’s case, it was the Daimyo Development Bank. This cozy relationship within the keiretsu allowed it to borrow money for expansion or research and development at low rates and with exceedingly generous terms.
    Now, however, Japan was in the grip of an economic crunch of a size and gravity unknown since the horrors of the immediate postwar period. It had begun in 1988 with the government’s misguided efforts to prop up an economy already suffering the first effects of a far too strong yen by artificially creating a land boom. Investing within their own country, these ministers reasoned, would mitigate, at least to some extent, the value of the yen. And the theory worked—up to a point. Then values began to stretch the bounds of reality. And still Japanese businessmen—cash rich and arrogant in their seemingly unflagging success—poured money into real estate. Inevitably, the bubble burst. Overleveraged on property they could no longer unload even at steep discounts, many businessmen went under, losing vast fortunes virtually overnight.
    The carnage grew, widening like ripples in a pond. Money-center banks that had blithely extended credit for what had appeared to be gilt-edged real estate were left with foreclosed properties that could not resupply them with sufficient capital. They were forced to draw down assets to pay the huge loan losses, and within the space of a year their balance sheets were stained with the red that is the only blood a banker recognizes.
    Daimyo Development Bank was no exception. Though hit less hard than some that were now out of business, the bank was weathering an exceptionally rocky period, and its losses had recently become a significant drag on Sato International’s bottom line. As recently as six months ago Nangi had had to replace Daimyo’s chairman, and still the mess was far from being under control. It was a source of particular humiliation to him since he had once been the bank’s director.
    The new watchword in Japan was risutora, something heretofore unheard of: industrial contraction. Japan Inc. was coming to grips with restructuring, a painful reduction in factories, consumer goods, and Japan’s most precious resource, superbly trained and loyal personnel. In a country where the expansionist bigger and better had been the key economic phrase for over four decades, risutora was a bitter reverse course, indeed. Thankfully, Nangi and Nicholas had never allowed their keiretsu to become bloated and inefficient. And Nicholas’s role within the conglomerate was increasing exponentially, since he had more experience with significant economic downturns than any Japanese. Still, the crunch in their operating capital was real enough.
    “Still, one way or another, we’ve got to come up with the capital,” Nicholas urged. “If we don’t get involved there in a major way—and quickly—we’re going to find ourselves run over by all the other major keiretsu.”
    “I need to give the situation some more time,” Nangi cautioned, not for the first time. “Vietnam is still newly opened, and I don’t fully trust the government.”
    “What you mean is you don’t trust the Vietnamese at all.”
    Nangi swirled the dregs of his tea around in his cup. He disliked this tension between them. Ever since Nicholas had first gone to Saigon several years ago to recruit this man Vincent Tinh as their director in Vietnam, Nangi had been worried. Tinh was a Vietnamese and Nangi supposed Nicholas was right, he did not trust them. So much money already committed to this strange, newly capitalist Vietnam, and Nicholas had been pushing him to commit so much more. What if the Communists returned and nationalized all private business? He and Nicholas would lose everything.
    “These people are opaque to me,” Nangi said, raising his eyes