The Dai-Ichi Life Insurance Company, Limited (TSE:8750) intends to make acquisitions through Protective Life Corporation. Dai-Ichi's President Koichiro Watanabe told Wall Street Journal: “When we agreed to buy Protective, we made a foreign exchange forward contract at Yen103 per dollar. After less than a year, gains from the change in foreign exchange rates were enough to offset Yen80 billion in amortization of goodwill.

... The impact from the foreign exchange forward contract was big enough to nearly offset the premium paid, but that also means if we initiate an acquisition of a similar size now, we might lose 20% [because of currency moves]. We've got Protective.

There is now a regional headquarters. What we are thinking is to give some authority to the regional manager and conduct mergers and acquisitions in dollars through Protective. We can also delegate some authority to the [Asian] headquarters.

... Considering the current exchange rates and premiums, I think that might work better.”