This is my essay.








There are two topics on the economic edition of recent newspapers. One is Mr. Yoshiaki Tsutsumi's violation of the Security Law on the false report of the shareholder of Seibu Railway Co. Ltd. Another is the attack and defense between Livedoor Co. Ltd and Fuji Television Network Co. Ltd. As every day these two topics have been reported in detail, other important news, such as the changing top management of Sony Co. Ltd. from Japanese to an English man was not focused so much.

Tsutsumi's case was in climax now, because he was arrested on the early March. People were surprised that he has been reining Seibu and the Prince Hotel group for forty years, just like as an emperor. He was once introduced by the Forbes magazine, that he was the richest person in the world. However, he was about to go into the prison now. He is radically dropping down from the heaven to the hell. Yesterday's king is now a dead body. I felt as if I could hear this phrase of the old poem, which came from the Jetavana vihara of Buddhism.

Since quite a long time ago, people have been arguing that Kokudo Co. Ltd was very strange, because it has never paid the Cooperate Tax, saying that they had no profit. Although Kokudo has owned huge amount of property whole in Japan, we can't understand about this. Superficially Kokudo had a huge debt, so Kokudo has had to pay its interest. Secondly Seibu Railway has not so eager to make investment on their facilities. The number of the crossing points of Seibu Railway is the largest among railway companies. The trains of Seibu were the most congested in Japan, and so on. I think all of this criticism was very true. One day I happened to take Seibu train. I was so scared and surprised that the stations were full of passengers and trains were very congested. I sympathize to the passengers of this Seibu area, because they have to take Seibu trains for daily commuting. I think that this is because the management did not function well in his group.

Anyway, because of his offense, Seibu was forced to go out from the stock market. The price of Seibu stock dropped to only one third of the former level. I think all of the shareholders should get loss, except some limited shareholders, to whom Mr. Tsutsumi sold Seibu stock directly. It is because these special stockholders can abolish the buying contract. But this treatment was only limited to very few big business. In another words, big companies have not gotten any loss. Only the public holders have lost money. Therefore, it is said that this result was very unfair. People hope a severe punishment on him.

On the other hand, the latter topic is a fight between Mr. Horie, the chairman of Livedoor Co. Ltd and Mr. Hieda Hisashi, the chairman Fuji Television Network. Mr. Horie is 32 years old and Mr. Hieda is 67 years old. We think this is the fight between grand-son's generation and grand father's generation. Their contrast is very funny. The young one wears a sweater but the old one wears black suits with necktie. Both of them have not escaped from interviews or announcement. The only one common feature of these two persons is that both of them are very talkative. Therefore people can easily find what kind of things they were thinking. So every day we watch their faces and fight through TV screen.

The history of this fight is as following.

(1) In the middle of February Livedoor suddenly announced that it bought 35% stock of Nippon Broadcasting Co. Ltd during the time of closed time through the inside of the stock market.

(2) Fuji Television Network was surprised and reduced the target of TOB from 50% to 25%.

(3) If Fuji succeeded in getting more than 25%, Nippon Broadcasting, bought by Livedoor, would lose voting power to Fuji. (3) Livedoor kept buying Nippon Broadcasting. Livedoor got 45% on March 8.

(4) Meanwhile, Nippon Broadcasting decided that it would give Fuji Television Network the right of 47.2 million stocks' worth of new stock reservation right on February 23. It means that Fuji Television Network would exercises this right; it would get 64% without TOB. Of course Livedoor suited Fuji Television for stopping it. Now it is scrutinize at the Tokyo District Court.

(5) The date of March 7 is a limit of the TOB. It was found that Fuji Television Network exceeds 1/3 stocks, which exceeds to the original TOB target of 25%.

Thus, the fighting is still going on now. We can't perspective how it would develop from now. So far there had been this kind of fight for getting hegemony of a company through share market. But most of them there were no way for the public to know what happened, because they were treated as secret. However on this time, most of the dealing was opened. So we can see all of them. I think that this is a new trend.

By the way, I think I am one of the specialists of Company Law. However I think most of their methods of both sides were strange or in the gray zone of law. I dare not to say each points in English, because they are concerning to the matter of Japanese law. However I think that the expected court decision of the Tokyo District Court would be the most important.

When I ask my friends of the impressions on the both sides, Mr. Horie of Livedoor is very popular among the young generation, who support his attitude to destroy the old establishment. But the senior people have bad feeling on him, saying that he does not have any courtesy and respect to the olds. Well, I think this is not the matter of good and bad, but the difference of young and senior. Anyway people like to watch what happen as the next steps.

(March 8, 2005)




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Essay of My Wonderful Life

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