Yasuo Takei, the king of Japan's consumer-finance industry, sits in an ornate chair. Scores of adoring uniformed employees shuffle forward on their knees to receive cups of sake and words of wisdom from their sovereign. This scene, played out weekly at the 72-year-old Takei's palatial Tokyo house, shows how far he has come from errand boy for his mother's small shop to builder of Japan's most profitable financial corporation. Now, however, his Takefuji is facing the biggest test of its 37 years. Barbarians, in the form of America's fearsome Citigroup and GE Consumer Credit, are laying siege to his empire, even as a powerful deflation saps the strength of his Japanese borrowers.
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