From Bean Counter to East-West Matchmaker : Peat Marwick Partner Specializes in Putting Japanese Companies in Touch With U.S. Investments
Standing on a promenade overlooking the Los Angeles skyline, Yukuo Takenaka surveyed the skyscrapers and pointed out some of the buildings owned by Japanese investors. Arco Tower. Chase Plaza. AT&T; Tower. Manulife Plaza.
“The Japanese don’t own all of downtown,” he said, grinning before he added, “Yet.”
Takenaka should know. As a partner in the accounting firm of Peat Marwick Main and head of its Japan Project, he has built an unrivaled roster of 1,200 Japanese clients in the United States. On that list are such names as Mazda, Honda, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric.
But Takenaka’s role extends beyond the traditional boundaries of accounting. He has played matchmaker for dozens of deals between Japanese buyers and American sellers, and he serves as an informal adviser to leading Japanese executives here and in Tokyo.
In one of his most ambitious projects, Takenaka is lining up Japanese investors for a 35,000-acre resort being developed on the big island of Hawaii by, among others, the wealthy Bass brothers of Texas.
“He has an eye for sizing up situations and putting people and events together to make things happen,” said Stephen D. Harlan, the vice chairman of international business for Peat Marwick, the world’s largest accounting firm. “He is a unique guy.”
In Japan, Takenaka is viewed as a leading business consultant. He has published four books in Japanese on management strategy, including a best seller on mergers and acquisitions, and he is a frequent lecturer in fluent Japanese.
Made Recruiting Tape
A leading Japanese television network once did a program on Takenaka, following him as he traveled by limousine and helicopter from Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel to the headquarters of one of his clients, the giant ball-bearing and electronics conglomerate, Minebea.
“They use this as a recruiting tape at Peat Marwick in Tokyo,” Takenaka said. “Young Japanese look at this--the limo, the helicopter--and say, ‘This is a CPA?’ ”
At age 45, Takenaka is not so much immodest as he is supremely self-assured. In an era Newsweek Magazine recently dubbed “The Pacific Century,” here is a man who has one foot planted securely on each side of the Pacific. Securely and lucratively.
Takenaka is so evenly divided between the two countries that, although a naturalized American citizen, he often uses “we” in the same sentence to refer both to his adopted country and his native land.
While he is not a celebrity here, he clearly relishes other trappings of his success and a salary well into six figures. He lives atop the hill in Palos Verdes, a lush area that has attracted a large number of wealthy Asians and Asian-Americans. Frequently he is driven around town in his Mercedes-Benz by an aide.
One day recently, he took a guest to lunch at the exclusive Jonathan Club, where two years ago he became only the second Japanese-American member. After lunch, he headed off to a meeting in Beverly Hills with a prominent Japanese director. A few days later, he was en route to Tokyo, where he keeps an apartment and spends half of his time.
Not bad for a guy who had trouble getting an accounting job a couple of decades ago.
Takenaka’s father came to the United States from Japan in 1955. He was running the Colonial Hotel in Salt Lake City when he sent for his family in 1957. Yukuo was 15 at the time.
In 1965, Takenaka graduated from the University of Utah at the top of his class in accounting. Other leading students received job offers from all of the Big Eight accounting firms. Takenaka got none.
“I was getting desperate,” he recalled recently. “Three firms were interested somewhat, but they wanted to send me to Tokyo. I wanted to stay in the U.S. and learn the way things work here.”
In a telephone conversation with a Peat Marwick official, he learned that a recruiter was on his way to the Salt Lake City airport after visiting nearby Brigham Young University. Takenaka put on a suit and rushed to the airport before the recruiter’s plane left.
A few weeks later, he was working in Peat Marwick’s Los Angeles office doing the traditional drudgery of accounting. Even then he had his eye on bigger things.
“I was a bean counter, but I didn’t just end up a bean counter,” he said. “I took the best things of being a bean counter--organization, analytical training--and I tried to be creative.”
When Takenaka looked at the structure of Peat Marwick, he saw that accountants who lacked special skills were often laid off. So he decided to gain an advantage from his unique skill, fluent Japanese, and ensure his niche within the firm by building a base of Japanese clients.
In those days, there were fewer Japanese businesses in the United States. But in 1968, Takenaka brought his first client to the firm, a tiny Japanese ball-bearing manufacturer setting up a subsidiary in the Los Angeles area. Along with doing routine work, Takenaka helped the fledgling subsidiary by working free on weekends without telling his bosses. He even assisted the firm’s Japanese employees in finding apartments.
It was the beginning of what became Peat Marwick’s Japan Project, a business within the business that has grown dramatically as Japanese influence has spread around the globe.
Today, the parent of the ball-bearing company, Minebea, has 25,500 employees worldwide and remains a loyal Peat Marwick client.
When Japanese executives came to the United States, Takenaka was always there to lend advice and help with translating. The executives, insecure on foreign soil, appreciated the knowing advice of the young accountant--and they would remember his assistance.
As Japanese investment here rose throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, so did Takenaka’s list of clients. He benefited from the relationships formed over the years, and he benefited from the Japanese cultural concept of clustering.
“Japanese hate to make a mistake,” he explained. “Once one company came to me, there was no risk for the others to follow. There is a saying in Japanese which translates roughly this way: ‘Red light? Don’t be scared if we all cross at the same time.’ ”
Client List Jumped
Since 1980, the Japanese have increased their investments in the United States almost sixfold. Last year, Japanese investors announced 94 U.S. acquisitions worth about $5.9 billion, up from $2.7 billion in 1986. Experts believe those figures are low because they do not include deals that occurred without fanfare.
Along the way, Peat Marwick’s list of Japanese clients doing business in the United States has mushroomed to 1,200 and the number around the world has grown to 2,300. Harlan, the head of international business for the firm, attributes the bulk of those clients to Takenaka.
“My success is attributed largely to the growing relationship between Japan and the United States,” Takenaka said. “I was in the right place at the right time.”
