Warrants and stock bubbles: when Japan ruled the world
Keith Mullin looks back on the era when Japanese banks surveyed the international markets from a position of apparently unassailable strength. Take a look at any broad yardstick of international investment banking achievement today. Four of the Japanese Big Five CIBs and investment banks – Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui, Mizuho, Nomura and Daiwa – are in the top 20 of global fee earners. Yet at the same time, it is probably fair to conclude that their positions in M&A as well as debt and equity underwriting are modest relative to their size...