Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway buys stakes in 5 Japanese trading houses

Warren Buffet is a shrewd investor, he knows what he is doing! I've never heard of him doing the kinds of things Xeno man is claiming. He is not a predatory investor that buys and breaks up companies, bankrupting them and then selling them off in pieces. He buys with an eye to the future. Let's hope this is a good signal for Japan Inc.

It's interesting to hear someone 90 years old talk about long-term investments . . .

I'm with him Japanese Cronyism seems teflon coated!

I have to some serious clarifications. I have been aware of what the USA is capable in the long time. I do not like it when many LDP leaders keep modeling themselves after Margeret Thratcher who destroyed the British economy for Corporate America. The legacy of Koizumi and Abe is all about creating the loopholes for foreign intrusions of malevolent intents. The Chinese managed to penetrate so deep into Japanese real estate market, thanks to Koizumi and Abe.

Warren Buffet is a shrewd investor, he knows what he is doing! I've never heard of him doing the kinds of things Xeno man is claiming. He is not a predatory investor that buys and breaks up companies, bankrupting them and then selling them off in pieces.

I don't have any bad blood with Warren Buffet but I am deeply worried on how Anglo-American style of capitalism begins to penetrate deep into Japan. Warren Buffet is a legendary investor who had fired executives that he doesn't like at a whim as well as downsizing workforce in a heartbeat.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-times-warren-buffett-has-said-youre-fired-2016-02-27

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/local-companies/2020/06/10/warren-buffetts-fort-worth-based-bnsf-cuts-jobs-as-railroads-feel-covid-19-pain/

https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2020/08/10/precision-castparts-cuts-10-000-jobs.html

Say goodbye to any Japanese style of social stability or lifetime employment. Cutting jobs is the standard formula for Warren Buffett. The man said it himself!

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/08/warren-buffett-jobs-us-3g-kraft-heinz-bid-unilever

If he is now involved with the five powerful remnants of Zaibatsus, then he is definitely up to something much grander than any Japanese executive can imagine.

Warren Buffet have a faith like most of us in stainless-steel Japanese economy. Unbreakable, crisis resistant.

Depend on your definition. The UK is the financial capital for illegal money laundering that barely benefits any British people. If he has "faith" in Japan, then it will be something like the UK where most profits go straight to the USA, while London acts an intermediary place for wealth transfer. People will soon treat Japan as a place to transfer their wealth between Asia and the West. However, it will not be like Singapore where the profits make the lives of Singaporeans better rather than it will be like UK where money goes straight to foreign elites.

Warren Buffett buys assets in Japan because the stocks here are dirt cheap. Those powerful trading houses control the important gateways between Japan and the world, in term of importing resources into Japan. If the man is going to completely control those firms in the distant future, he can very threaten the national security of Japan through simply not importing stuffs into Japan. OR he can raise a sky-high prices (like most American capitalists did in Latin America) that only make Japanese lives worse.

Trust into a foreign man (a legendary man), who has a history of buying/breaking firms for higher profits without a thought on the lives of workers and social goods, is very a misguided one.

I'm with him Japanese Cronyism seems teflon coated!

Be careful for what you wished for. Japanese crony capitalism is hilariously inefficient and corrupt but it is the system that assures the economic independence of Japan until Koizumi/Abe gave it away for Americans and foreign investors.

What we need is to kick out the old guards and put the new bloods with innovative ideas.

Could this have something to do the with the future USA-China trading. Obviously from USA perspective Japanese companies are reliable and reckon could act as the middle man. So why not make some money on commissions.

Or is it a sign that something bad has been brewing in the US ?

Buffet’s long term plan originating in the 1960’s has worked. Until this year.

While the DJIA fell from 29,000 to 18,000 in March, Buffet’s Birkshire Hathaway sat on 137 billion dollars in cash & bought nothing. He waited out the stock market recovery when he could have easily begun a stock market rally by adding to the BH portfolio. Huge failure.

Never, not ever rewarding his shareholders with a dividend, he instead, much later, bought Bank of America & gold. Gold! Pure speculation!

Please retire Warren, now!

Xeno ManToday  04:05 pm JST

When Warren Buffet soon takes charges of the big 5 trading houses, ..............

From the article.........

The company is planning a long-term investment and may increase its holdings to up to 9.9 percent, it said in a news release. 

Xeno ManToday  07:22 pm JST

If the man is going to completely control those firms in the distant future, .......

I bought into a Nikkei 225 index fund right before the governance measures were rolled out and have since seen a 50% return on the units I'm still holding. I cashed in about half my holdings a couple of years later, pocketing around 20% gain thinking I was doing well, silly me.

Many investors like me who have been relatively bullish (ie not doom and gloom) on Japan have done well.

This is the beginning of the end for the Japanese bureaucratic systems among the Japan Inc. If Warren Buffet joins the game, then Paul Singer and his cohorts may finally prove successful of defeating the Japan systems.

I already saw the defeat of Japan Inc and Japanese bureaucracy when Shinzo Abe kowtowed to Trump with an agricultural deal that will fully open Japanese markets for American and foreign farmers/agricultural companies. This certainly spells death for the fragile agricultural industry of Japan. Japanese farmers can't compete against any outsider, especially with the Americans. What even worse is that American foods and agricultural produces are full of unhealthy chemicals and GMOs which forced the EU to put a barrier against the Americans. Now, I bet Japanese lifespans will decrease in the long term.

The breakthrough into Japanese agriculture market, thanks to Trump, is the sign for the concede of Japan towards the USA and foreigners. Many beloved Japanese brands will be foreign in the next decade, like Sony and Nintendo are already foreign. What is more terrible that there is no Japanese capable of wrestling the restless tides of foreign intrusions of malevolent intents. Chinese investors do not care about Japanese economic laws, as they already ruin the Kabukeicho and most of Tokyo districts into the hotbeds of crimes and prostitution. American investors do not give a crap about labor unions and labor laws, as the lifetime employment is now a distant memory in Japan. European investors only favor their own European people, and they do not treat the Japanese workers with respect.

Shinzo Abe resigns out of the huge messes that he carved for the rising trend of foreign capitalist, predatory intrusions. He and his cronies long sold Japan for the highest, foreign bidders. When Warren Buffet soon takes charges of the big 5 trading houses, he will not be merciful towards any Japanese worker and executive who prioritizes stability above profit. Buffet is a ruthless man, so be wary!

Really good sign that worldwide there is huge confidence in the direction Japan is heading. The changeover in the Leader should be seamless, and PM Abes pro-business and jobs policies continued. Things are ticking along nicely, and billionaires like Buffet want in!

after Margeret Thratcher who destroyed the British economy 

Thank you for making me laugh!