Exxon Mobil Corp. had an inside track earlier this year when a Japanese energy company acquired 99 percent of its Tokyo-based subsidiary, called Exxon Mobil Yugen Kaisha. Exxon’s advantage came because Judith Batty, the senior in-house counsel who spearheaded the $3.9 billion deal, was general counsel of the subsidiary from 2006 to 2009. While negotiations were time-consuming and meticulous, they were helped along by Batty’s intimate knowledge of both companies, as well as her fluency in Japanese.
There were several keys to the deal. But a main one, Batty says, is that Exxon will be a major but noncontrolling shareholder of the buyer, TonenGeneral Sekiyu K.K. “The upshot is that Exxon Mobil will still have strategic alliances in Japan and own 22 percent [of TonenGeneral]. It allows us to still be a player in Japan in a smaller footprint downstream, from the refinery to the car.”
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