JAPAN

Foreign Buyouts Double: Foreign companies are seeing slumping Japanese stock prices and corporate profits as a way to strengthen their foothold in Japan by buying local companies, according to recent surveys on mergers and acquisitions. While the overall number of mergers and acquisitions in Japan fell to a six-year low in 1992, buyouts by foreign companies more than doubled to 37 from 18 in 1991, a Yamaichi Securities report said. “Prices of Japanese companies have become more reasonable in the past few years,” said Fumihiro Shimizu, a strategist at Yamaichi.