Japan's First Nationwide Search Fund to Solve the Problem of Business Succession

DBJ, Nihon M&A Center, Inc., and Career Incubation Inc. and others have established Search Fund Japan Inc., the first nationwide search fund management company in Japan, to assist in solving the problem of the lack of successors for the nation's small and medium-sized companies.

DBJ works with operating companies and regional financial institutions to support a wide range of corporate succession initiatives. With a dearth of successors becoming a worsening problem among Japanese firms, especially those in rural areas, we founded Search Fund Japan to promote generational changes in management and renewed corporate growth.

Search funds are a mechanism that began with graduates of U.S. business schools in the 1980s. Having resulted in more than 300 investments in the U.S., search funds are starting to take hold in Europe and other regions as well. Their growth is contributing to the expansion of the young management class.

Through this initiative, we hope to establish search funds as a new solution to the increasingly serious issue of business succession, and to help create an ecosystem that produces talented future managers.