Only connect.(merger plans are underway for most of Japan's large banks, but questions remain)

Economist (US), The, May, 2000

TOKYO

The skies are darkening over Japan's big bank mergers

IT SAYS much about the faith that the Japanese have in their many merging banks that, with the ink barely dry on the marriage invitations, gossips are already speculating about the first divorce. Things are not going well, it is whispered, at Mitsui and Chuo, two weak trust banks that are clinging to each other in a desperate embrace; or at Mizuho, the name hatched for the merger of Fuji, Dai- Ichi Kangyo Bank (DKB) and Industrial Bank of Japan (IBJ). These three enfeebled lenders now seem hopelessly lost in their labyrinthine construction of what is meant to be the world's largest bank. Most of Japan's big bank marriages have fallen behind their already slow schedule. There are even fears...

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