Chinese real estate

The New York Times writes about Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOE's) growing investments in real estate and how this adds to bubble symptoms in the real estate market. The article also states that the Chinese central government is trying to ebb the flow of capital into real estate, but that it has so far not been successful. This is not news; since the beginning of the year the central government has indeed signified that non-real estate-focused SOE's will need to exit real estate businesses (but not within the near future). However, the New York Times does point out that SOE's are using sophisticated legal structures to fund real estate developments and that their cleverness allows them to continue real estate ventures.

We will see what instrument(s) the government uses next to block SOE involvement in real estate, in order to cool down a hot and heated market.

Ambassador Niwa

Japan's Ambassador to China, Uichiro Niwa, continues to take an aggressive stance vis-a-vis the bureaucratic mentality of Japan's Foreign Ministry. For Japanese businesses and other groups frustrated by a lack of pro-active support from their government, Niwa-san is a breath of fresh air.

Mizuho fundraising

Mizuho is pricing new equity shares at JPY 130/share in order to raise approximately US$8.5 billion in fresh capital, as reported by Dow Jones. This follows other Japanese financial institutions in an effort to shore up capital ratios. There is much talk in financial circles of implementation (finally!) of Basel II requirements in 2011 and sales of non-performing loans. Equity raising is an essential prerequisite to Japan taking this step.

Looking at the results of last weekend's Upper House election and the DPJ's failure to maintain control of both Houses, pundits are claiming fiscal austerity and controlling national debt are again on the backburners. Certainly, Prime Minister Kan's lack of eloquence in framing discussion around a doubling of the consumption tax has been a stumble. On the other hand, the public face of the DPJ's budget-cutting team, Renho, was the top vote-getter nationwide, and more impressively, in the highly competitive Tokyo district, claiming over 1.7 million votes. The second-largest vote-getter nationwide was at the 1 million vote range. This is a show of strong public support for cutting the public budget.

There are other signs that public debt will be tackled; a number of pro-business anti-public debt representatives, such as Kenji Nakanishi, have been voted in. Nakanishi is a former JP Morgan banker and part of the Your Party, was elected on a platform of continuing with Japan Post's privatization and against using Japan Post deposits as a piggy bank for government works. Another data point is a release showing Japan's national pension fund was a net seller of Japanese Government Bonds last year - if the public pension's money cannot be guaranteed to support government spending, perhaps Japan has a chance to rein in national debt.

Suburban Tokyo housing

A continuing trend in Japanese real estate follows the demographic movement of mass migration to several hub cities, led by the nation's capital, Tokyo. In addition, the recent economic boom led to a rush of residential tower developments in central Tokyo. Individual ward offices competed for larger residential populations, and thus greater political power, by approving floor-area-ratio bonuses and allowing for higher developments, which in effect led to more residential area coming onto the market. Notwithstanding the economic bust of the past 2 years, these developments have largely been successful, and have led to greater density in central Tokyo. Salarymen are happy to have shorter commutes; empty-nesters can enjoy the conveniences of downtown Tokyo, students and young employees can stay out later at night enjoying abundant social life (or working...).

However, this trend is not without its losers. The Nikkei reported last week on stress in residential properties in suburban Tokyo. Suburban Tokyo is defined as being 40 or more kilometers from the Tokyo city center, encompassing parts of Saitama, Kanagawa, Chiba and Ibaraki prefectures. Accordingly, the Nikkei reported that 49% of vacant suburban residential properties have been vacant for over one year. The top reason for vacancy, capturing 57% of responses, was due to previous tenant's vacancy. Demand seems to be dwindling quickly for suburban residences. The article also notes a similar trend in the Osaka metropolitan area.

What does this mean for suburban communities and services such as shopping centers, restaurants, and even post offices? Will there be a further separation between winners and losers of suburban train operators (who operate a multitude of ancillary services in their various geographies, including buses, grocery stores, and property management), such as Tokyu, Odakyu, Seibu, Keikyu, Tobu and Kintetsu?

Futenma

Okinawa's prominence at the front of Japanese newspapers has declined with former Prime Minister Hatoyama's resignation and new Prime Minister Kan's proposal to restart consumption tax increase debate (and lowering of corporate taxes). To some extent, the "Okinawa issue" of how to deal with U.S. troops in the prefecture will remain in the background, directly affecting only 1% of the Japanese population. Perhaps this is a good time to stand back and reflect.

Over the previous six months, opponents of the U.S. bases in Okinawa have received ample airtime to vent, thanks greatly to Social Democratic Party leader Mizuho Fukushima. It appeared that the whole prefecture was up in arms about the U.S. military's presence; several protest rallies claimed to tally up to 100,000 demonstrators. However, as many Japanese tabloids recounted, these figures were often rounded several times up. In fact, ultimately it was a minority, not a majority, that was against the U.S. military's presence.

This makes sense; Okinawa boasts three main industries - tourism, public works (subsidized by national government) and support of the U.S. military operations, as shown by the Bank of Japan. Agriculture and fisheries is a distant fourth. Removing any of the three economic pillars would be a disaster for the Okinawa people's livelihood, and this is greatly understood by the local population, regardless of any negative personal feelings to military presence, generally, and the U.S. military's presence, specifically. On a political level, local players understand Okinawa's geopolitical location in the Pacific and value as a naval base and military outpost, regardless of the operator's nationality. These local players spend their efforts on profiteering from this reality, not by fighting it. Over the decades, they have also become adept at linking support of the U.S. bases to public works subsidies, continuously winning national public funds as an economic remedy to the emotional burden of housing the U.S. military. Indeed, removal of the U.S. bases might also cause a reduction in national subsidies, in one blow felling two of the three economic pillars! The connection between military support and national subsidies was recently addressed by the Japan Times.

Of course, to remain in power, local politicians need to maintain a populist image, thus Okinawa Governor Imanime's public about-face on "nobody in Okinawa wants (a) large-scale reversion" of U.S. bases prior to publicly refuting this stance.

HMV Shibuya and Tsutaya

Following the disappearance of Tower Records, Virgin Records and other titans of the music industry around the globe, it was inevitable for a similar act to happen in Japan. That Japanese music retailers could last so long is a testament to the propensity of the local population to continue buying music and not download illegally, and to a lesser degree, to the lack of music discounting by retailers (by law). Even Japanese dinosaurs cannot survive beyond their age, and HMV announced the closing of its flagship Shibuya store and several others. The Shibuya store was HMV's first of 66 to be opened in Japan (HMV's Japan website).

(It is appropriate to note that Tower Records Japan continues to fight the good fight, following an MBO of the Japanese unit in 2002 which sidestepped the bankruptcy and liquidation of Tower Records in the U.S. Tower Records Japan did have the foresight to understand CD's do not sell themselves in the internet age and lead marketing campaigns in collaboration with producers. Tower's successful "No Music No Life" ad campaign launched the firm's brand recognition similarly to MTV in the U.S.)

The fall of music in Japan is a topic for another column; there are several factors that play a role, and I will only point them out quickly - antiquated legal code prohibiting the discount of new music albums, written novels and other consumable media, lack of innovation and production of saleable music, and changing demographics.

I would rather take this opportunity to highlight what comes next - from the ashes of HMV Japan rises Tsutaya, the brand driven by the awkwardly-named Culture Convenience Club Co., Ltd. ("CCC"). Its main platform, Tsutaya, grew to market dominancy originally through video rentals (a Japanese version of Blockbuster in the U.S.) and then music CD rentals (which helped the quick drop in CD sales) before further expanding to rent comic books in addition to retail sales of the same consumables.

What is CCC's growth strategy going forward?

Sankei Biz (in Japanese) writes that CCC is currently in negotiations to buy HMV Japan's business from current owner Daiwa SMBC Principal Investments. Allegedly, this will include the absorption of HMV's stores, although it is unknown whether the HMV brand will be kept or jettisoned in favor of Tsutaya. This also neglects the fact that many of HMV's locations in prime retails areas are within close proximity to Tsutaya's own; HMV Shibuya lies within 50 meters of Tsutaya at Q-Front Shibuya.

CCC also looks to expand its retail operations in new directions, including online video rentals a la Netflix (Tsutaya Discas) and an online travel agent (T-Travel). More interesting is an adult-geared entertainment complex with retail, restaurants and parking in fashionable Daikanyama adjacent to Hillside Terrace (CCC's press release), which follows a strategy initiated by Tsutaya in Roppongi Hills and Tokyo Midtown.

->This strategy has also been recognized and favored by other retailers in this age of austerity. While the young are more prone to downloading music and movies and shopping for second-hand items, and the older remain a generation of savers (opening their wallets for vacations rather than CDs), the key spending demographic is the 30-49 year-old slice. This has been widely acknowledged over the past couple years, and the Japanese advertising community continues to zero in. One current example is the successful TV drama Dousoukai by TV Asahi, which tells the stories of families breaking under pressure, love affairs and difficulties in parenting that arise during the 30th year reunion of junior high school friends. As a further press for viewers, the drama resurrects teen idols of the 80's and early 90's for the main character roles. <-

One potential future engine of growth is Tsutaya's Point Card System. CCC's 2009 Q2 investor report shows the rapid increase not only in T-Point members and accepting retails partners, but also in number of transactions. What CCC does not break out is revenue attributable to the T-Point system, both in retail partner fees and in credit card issuance.

Of course, as CCC's approx. 6% interest (indirectly held by Tsutaya Co., Ltd.) in second-hand retailer Book-Off suggests mass retailing of affordable goods, both sales and rentals of new and used items, will continue to be the core business strategy. I imagine that CCC will negotiate down rents for its retail sites to take advantage of falling real estate rents and counter-act revenue decreases, which will hopefully boost operating profits.

JAL Hotels

Although no official announcement has been made by either company, the Japanese continues to widely report that Okura Hotels has agreed to take over JAL Hotels. Okura Hotels even explicitly notes there is no existing agreement to purchase JAL Hotels on its website (Japanese only). The decision for Japan Airlines to sell its hotel operations, branded under Nikko Hotels and Hotel JAL City, has long been expected by the investment community. That this decision took half a year FOLLOWING bankruptcy to be made highlights the political opposition within JAL and the government. Nonetheless, as a business decision this is a no-brainer.

Through the two brands, JAL Hotels currently operates 58 hotels, 41 domestic and 17 overseas. Its 2009 financials show JPY 13.8 billion in sales and JPY 0.2 billion in operating profit (Mainichi Shimbum in Japanese only). For any business manager, this is an unexceptable profit margin and the business should be jettisoned. This also stands in high contrast with Okura Hotels financials, which state JPY 55.1 billion in sales with JPY 2.1 billion operating profit for 21 hotels. Of course, from a Western perspective, Okura Hotels' operating margin is also nothing to boast of...

There are two points to make in this transaction. First, this transaction is to buy the JAL Hotels operating company and assume its 1,000 employees. Okura Hotels is only gaining two hotels - the rest were sold over the past several years to reduce its balance sheet and to free capital. This makes JAL Hotels' poor financial results look even worse. It also calls into question Okura Hotels' purchase price of JPY 6 billion (Asahi Shimbum in Japanese only). As a sale, this is undoubtedly a great price - and understandably, other potential buyers (private equity firms and domestic and international hotel operators) could not make this bid. But how does Okura Hotels justify this price?

This leads me to the second point - this is a transformational deal for Okura Hotels, adding 400% more hotels to its operations in one swoop. What is Okura Hotels motivation? Do they have the operational ability to increase profitability at JAL Hotels? Will they continue to operate the overseas hotels? Will they maintain the Nikko and JAL City brands?

Regardless of these answers, Okura Hotels will need to turn around this ship quickly; JAL Hotels already has forward commitments for two hotels in Suzhou, China.