Keisho X
Tools & sources
Working tools for serious research: a bilingual glossary, practical checklists, and curated official sources worth bookmarking.
Glossary of key terms
Full glossary →- BATONZ バトンズ · batonzu
- Japan's largest online small-M&A marketplace, launched from the Nihon M&A Center group. Useful for market education and micro-deal sourcing; Japanese-language operation.
- Business Manager visa 経営・管理 · keiei kanri
- The status of residence for foreigners who own and actively manage a business in Japan. Requirements were substantially tightened in 2025 — verify current rules before structuring.
- Chusho kigyo 中小企業 · chūshō kigyō
- Small and medium enterprises. Over 99% of Japanese companies, employing about 70% of the private workforce — and the population where the succession gap is concentrated.
- Chusho M&A Guidelines 中小M&Aガイドライン · chūshō M&A gaidorain
- The SME Agency's guidelines for small-company M&A conduct: fee disclosure, conflict handling, and seller protection. A useful map of known market abuses.
- Daihyo torishimariyaku 代表取締役 · daihyō torishimariyaku
- Representative director — the legally registered officer who binds the company. Banks strongly prefer a Japan-resident representative; plan this in your post-close structure.
- Daisansha shokei 第三者承継 · daisansha shōkei
- Third-party succession — transferring the business to someone outside the family and workforce, i.e. a sale. The category foreign buyers participate in.
- Eigyoken 営業権 · eigyōken
- Goodwill — in small-deal pricing convention, typically two to five years of normalized operating profit added on top of restated net assets.
- FEFTA 外為法 · gaitamehō
- The Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act — Japan's foreign investment screening law. Requires prior notification for acquisitions in designated sensitive sectors, post-facto reporting otherwise.
Buyer checklists & frameworks
Before you engage
- □ Written acquisition thesis (sector, size, region, role)
- □ Realistic budget including 6–12 months of working capital
- □ Time commitment honestly assessed (part-time rarely works)
- □ Japanese-language plan: personal ability, hire, or partner
- □ Read the FEFTA guide for your sector
Evaluating a target
- □ Three years of financials (and honest normalization of owner comp)
- □ Customer concentration and key-person dependencies
- □ Employee tenure, age structure, and retention risk
- □ Real estate: owned, leased, or entangled with the family
- □ Why succession, why now, and who else knows the business is for sale
Process discipline
- □ NDA before detail; respect intermediary rules
- □ In-person meetings budgeted (video rarely closes trust gaps)
- □ Bilingual LOI reviewed by Japanese counsel
- □ FEFTA pre-notification checked before signing
- □ Post-close transition plan agreed with the seller (often 6–12 months)
Curated official & public sources
The primary sources we rely on. All public; all worth bookmarking.
METI — Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
SME policy, succession support programs, and the underlying data on Japan's ownership demographics.
SME Agency (中小企業庁)
The annual SME White Paper — the single best public dataset on succession pressure (Japanese).
Business Succession Support Centers (事業承継・引継ぎ支援センター)
Government-backed succession centers in every prefecture — free matching support for owners.
JETRO — Japan External Trade Organization
Practical English resources on investing in Japan, market entry, and business setup.
MOF — FEFTA / Inward Direct Investment
The official rules on foreign investment notification, including designated sectors.
Statistics Bureau of Japan
Economic census and demographic data underpinning any serious regional thesis.
Japan Succession Brief
The intelligence serious buyers forward to colleagues
Policy changes, market data, and ground-level observations on Japanese SME succession — a few times a month, no filler, unsubscribe anytime.