Natixis CIB to acquire Tokyo boutique Sangyo Sosei Advisory to enter Japan M&A

Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking, the investment banking arm of French lender BPCE, agreed on Tuesday to acquire Sangyo Sosei Advisory Inc., an independent financial services firm in Tokyo, to enter the Japan M&A advisory business. The purchase price was not disclosed, and the deal is subject to approval from Japanese regulators.

The Natixis Japan M&A acquisition matters because global lenders are racing to add dealmakers in Tokyo while Japanese companies pursue transactions at a record pace in search of growth. Natixis is choosing to build its advisory franchise through a boutique team rather than individual hires.

What happened

Natixis CIB said in a statement on Tuesday that it had agreed to take over Sangyo Sosei Advisory, confirming an earlier report. The financial terms were not given, and completion depends on clearance from Japanese regulators.

The transaction brings a team of bankers from Sangyo into Natixis. Co-founder Gary Chan, a former UBS managing director, will oversee the newly established business. Kentaro Relnick joins as head of M&A for Japan, and Fumiaki Sato will become an executive advisor of Natixis's Tokyo banking branch. All are due to start formally on 1 January.

The move is an acquisition of Natixis's own, made as competition for a slice of Japan's dealmaking boom intensifies. Instead of assembling an advisory desk one banker at a time, the bank is taking on an established group that already works together on Japanese transactions.

Makito Nagahiro, Natixis's Japan head, said the step

"underscores our ongoing commitment to the Japanese market and accelerates our strategic growth trajectory,"

Makito Nagahiro, Natixis's Japan head, in the company's statement on Tuesday.

Who is Sangyo Sosei Advisory?

Sangyo Sosei Advisory is a Tokyo boutique founded in 2009 that first focused on technology, media and telecommunications and later expanded into infrastructure. Its track record includes work on well-known Japanese transactions.

• DigitalBridge Group Inc.'s 70 billion yen ($442 million) acquisition of Jtower Inc., announced in 2024.
• The sale of Arteria Networks Corp. to Marubeni Corp. and Secom Co. in 2023.

Both mandates sit in the digital infrastructure and telecom space, which is one of the sectors Natixis says it wants to target in Japan. That overlap helps explain why the French bank chose a boutique with this specific sector record.

What is Natixis's strategy in Japan?

Natixis has taken a series of steps in recent years to expand in Japan. It has grown its sales and trading team, strengthened its lending business and opened a bank branch. Its local securities operations have focused on global markets and on helping Japanese companies issue non-yen bonds.

According to people familiar with the matter, Natixis will work mainly on cross-border transactions in Japan, targeting energy, natural resources and digital infrastructure. The same people said the Paris-based bank has spent about three years preparing the move, seeking to offer a wider range of services to global institutional clients, including private equity firms, which are showing increased interest in Japan.

They added that Sangyo will also let Natixis expand into areas including leveraged finance and strengthen debt underwriting.

The sector focus echoes what the bank said when it opened its Tokyo banking branch. In an interview in Tokyo published on 16 July 2025, Bruno Le Saint, chief executive of Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking for Asia Pacific, said the bank aimed to win energy transition and digital transformation deals in Japan, and that it wanted to help clients "go from brown to green".

Earlier coverage of the bank's Japan push also reported plans to double its banking staff in Japan as the market booms, and the hiring of managers from JPMorgan and Societe Generale for its Japanese banking business. The Sangyo team adds a dedicated advisory group on top of that hiring.

How does it fit BPCE's wider advisory buildup?

The Japan deal follows Natixis's expansion of its M&A advisory network in the US, where its affiliate Fenchurch Advisory Partners agreed in June to combine with Broadhaven Capital Partners. These moves are part of a buildup of the business spanning markets from the euro zone to China and Australia, in line with BPCE's strategy.

Seen together, the US combination and the Tokyo acquisition show a pattern: Natixis is using deals with specialist advisory firms to extend its reach in regions where it already has lending, markets or branch operations.

Why it matters

The acquisition shows how competition for Japanese deal flow is reshaping the advisory market. Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS Group AG have all made key appointments to strengthen their ranks of dealmakers in Tokyo. Other recent hires include a former Nomura banker as Citigroup's Japan M&A head, a Barclays appointment from Lincoln as head of Japan M&A, and the appointment by JPMorgan of Goldman Sachs's Chikami to co-head its Japan deals business.

Energy is a visible driver. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the value of overseas Japanese energy deals has exceeded $12 billion this year, the most since 2020, which fits the sector focus Natixis has described.

For investors following European banks, the transaction shows how a French group is widening its fee-earning advisory activity in a market where Japanese companies are seeking growth through transactions, and where private equity clients are showing more interest.

What are the risks and open questions?

Several points remain open. The price was not disclosed, so the scale of the commitment cannot be judged from the announcement. Regulatory approval in Japan is still required before the transaction completes. And a crowded field of global banks hiring in Tokyo means Natixis will be competing for mandates against larger incumbents, a point implicit in the pace of recent appointments.

Much of the detail on strategy, including the focus on cross-border work, the three years of preparation and the leveraged finance ambitions, comes from people familiar with the matter rather than from the company's statement, and Natixis has not published targets for the new business. Whether a boutique team can keep its momentum inside a larger bank will only be visible in the mandates it wins.

What to watch next

The next steps are mostly procedural, with the date of the team's formal start the one fixed marker.

• Approval from Japanese regulators, with no date given.
• 1 January: Gary Chan, Kentaro Relnick and Fumiaki Sato formally start at Natixis.
• The first mandates of the new Japan M&A business, particularly in energy, natural resources and digital infrastructure.
• Any further hiring or advisory combinations by Natixis as BPCE builds the business across regions.