Japan overseas deals top $134 billion in 2012

TOKYO (AFP) - The value of deals by Japanese firms abroad has topped US$110 billion (S$134 billion) so far this year, according to data provider Dealogic Wednesday, a shopping spree driven by a strong yen and limp domestic market.

Softbank's US$20 billion takeover of US mobile carrier Sprint Nextel was a major contributor to the overseas shopping bonanza this year, which saw just over 700 deals worth US$110.3 billion, beating last year's US$84 billion tally and far outpacing US$36 billion in 2010, the figures showed.

Softbank's announcement in October that it will buy 70 per cent of the third-biggest US mobile carrier was Japan's biggest-ever overseas deal after Japan Tobacco's US$19 billion purchase of Britain's Gallaher Group Plc in 2007.

Headline-grabbing deals in the past couple of years have included Takeda Pharmaceutical's US$12.7 billion purchase of Swiss drugmaker Nycomed and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial's deal to buy the Royal Bank of Scotland's aircraft leasing arm for about US$7.3 billion.