TMI Associates

TMI Associates strengthened its capital markets and corporate and M&A practice by hiring partners Hitoshi Sumiya and Harumichi Uchida from Baker McKenzie (Gaikokuho Joint Enterprise) and Mori Hamada & Matsumoto this year. The firm lost restructuring and insolvency partner Shintaro Sato in September 2017. The firm is particularly strong in intellectual property, media and entertainment and pharmaceuticals and life sciences.

Capital markets

Work highlights

Advised Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation on an issue of BPCE senior non-preferred bonds. This is the bank’s first retail issue of this type of bond.

Key clients

JPMorgan Securities Japan, Mizuho Securities, Okamoto Glass, Snow Peak, Tokai Tokyo Securities

Corporate and M&A

Work highlights

Advised GSR Capital, a China-based private equity fund, on the acquisition of Nissan’s lithium-ion battery business, together with all shares of Automotive Energy Supply Corporation (AESC), a subsidiary of Nissan which had formed a joint-venture with NEC Group.  

Acted for Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, a semi-government funded private equity fund, in its acquisition of a 40% stake in Ambry, a healthcare company in the US that provides generic testing solutions for inherited and non-inherited diseases.

Key clients

Alpine Electronics, LG Household and Healthcare, LINE, Macromill, Secom, Seino Holdings

Intellectual property

Work highlights

Acted for Money Forward (the defendant) in a patent litigation case filed by freee K.K. (the plaintiff) claiming that the service provided by the defendant infringed the patent held by the plaintiff regarding automatic journalisation and demanding the suspension of such service. Both companies place the provision of crowd accounting software, which is a leading domain in the fintech field, at the core of their respective businesses, and this case attracted much attention as Japan’s first patent litigation in the fintech field.   

Key clients

Red Bull, Suntory Holdings, Yahoo Japan

Investment funds

Work highlights

Advised Nissay Asset Management Corporation as manager of the investment vehicle for the cross border infrastructure investment project by the Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan (GPIF), the largest government pension fund in the world with assets under management of ¥‎‎156.8 trillion. This is the first alternative investment project undertaken by GPIF which had, in the past, only made investments in traditional assets.