A one-stop partner for Japanese companies entering India

Kyodo supports Japanese and Indian companies through the acquisition process, from identifying and evaluating potential targets or partners, through due diligence, valuation and transaction support, to post-acquisition integration. This work draws directly on the market-entry consulting and pharmaceutical-industry relationships we have built over four decades.

They disappoint because the target was found through a broker rather than a relationship, because diligence surfaced in month five what a conversation would have surfaced in week two, or because nobody owned the integration once the deal closed. Our value sits in those three places rather than in the transaction mechanics.

An acquisition touches nearly the whole legal framework above at once: FEMA and the FDI Policy on how consideration moves, the Companies Act on approvals and records, the Competition Act on merger control, and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code where the target is distressed. We work with partner counsel across all of it and sequence the commercial process around the approval timetable, rather than discovering that timetable late.

Distressed and carve-out situations deserve particular mention. India's insolvency regime has put assets in play that were previously locked up, and Japanese buyers have generally been slower than others to look at them: partly because the process is unfamiliar, and partly because it runs on a statutory clock that does not accommodate a long internal approval cycle. That is a solvable problem, but it is worth solving before the bid rather than during it.

Beyond individual transactions, Kyodo helps Japanese and Indian companies build lasting strategic partnerships: joint ventures, technical alliances, licensing arrangements and co-marketing agreements. We welcome collaboration proposals from companies looking to strengthen their global footprint or build more reliable supply chains between Asia and the rest of the world.

An alliance is harder than an acquisition in one specific way: nobody is in charge. A joint venture between a Japanese and an Indian company has two decision cultures, two reporting rhythms and two working definitions of what "agreed" means, and the documents rarely settle any of that on their own. What settles it is the work done before signing (on governance, on deadlock, on who actually decides what), and somebody who stays in the relationship afterwards.

We have been facilitating joint ventures and strategic collaborations between Indian and Japanese companies for more than two decades, much of it in pharmaceuticals. The recurring failure is not commercial disagreement. It is a shareholders' agreement that reads perfectly well in English and is understood differently in each of the two boardrooms.

The legal framework above applies here as well, and differently. A joint venture is an entity question (Companies Act, Limited Liability Partnership Act) before it is a contract question, and the FDI route determines what the Japanese partner can hold and how profits come home. We work with partner counsel on the structuring and take the commercial and operational side ourselves.