The announcement that Shinsei Bank and Mellon Financial are establishing a joint venture investment advisory company to tackle the Japanese pension fund market should have competitors worried.
Shinsei, formerly Long-Term Credit Bank, is one of a handful of banks that were nationalized and then sold to foreign owners. It is not one of Japan's mega-banks but is the only large one to be foreign owned by the consortium Ripplewood Holdings, ranked 20th in Japan in FinanceAsia's Top 200 Asian Banks survey see our August edition. Thanks to this pedigree it is also the most commercially minded of the large banks, providing its shareholders a return on average assets of 0.71% last year,...
