How Merrill Lost Its Way in Japan

摘要

Wall Street powerhouses have long had designs on Japan's fabled $10 trillion-plus in household savings. None more so than Merrill Lynch & Co., which in 1998 snapped up Japan's fourth-biggest broker, the failed Yamaichi Securities Co. It was billed as a breakthrough foreign takeover thatrnwould pull Japanese finance out of the dark ages. The goal, Merrill Japan Chairman Hisashi Moriya in-toned at the time, was to become "Japan's most trusted broker."rnThe idea was that Merrill's pedi-gree would wow Japanese investors. After all, local houses like Yamaichi and Nomura Securities Co. churned and burned accounts, levied larce-nous commissions, and generally treated investors badly. Merrill, via a reformed Yamaichi, would fix all that with U.S.-style compliance training, a global menu of mutual funds, and sage financial planning. Its first ma-rnkey to stoking Merrill's more lucra-tive business underwriting stocks and bonds and offering financial ad-vice and strategies for its blue-chip corporate clients in Japan.