Three Presidents, All Friends, Commit Suicide Deaths Of Japanese Business Leaders Shock Nation Amid Economic Turmoil

The three businessmen checked in together at the Le Piano hotel in a Tokyo suburb.

They took separate rooms, meeting later in one of them to share some whiskey and cheap Chinese liquor.

Then they said goodbye. Each went to his own room. Each hanged himself.

Even in a country with a long tradition of suicide as an answer to failure, the three deaths managed to shock the Japanese, and drove home the crippling impact that the country’s prolonged economic slump has had on small- to mediumsize companies.

Shattered finances have forced Japan’s banking sector to abruptly halt lending to medium-size companies, starving them of cash. More and more of them are becoming desperate.

The three businessmen checked into the hotel on Wednesday. The empty liquor bottles in one of their rooms indicate they shared a few last drinks before saying farewell, and hanged themselves from ventilator grates with identical white ropes.

Masaaki Kobayashi’s company, Spot, began to decline with the Japanese economy eight years ago and was saddled with $30 million in debts.

Kobayashi failed to honor an $800,000 debt on Wednesday, the deadline for payment, and the company was going to declare bankruptcy Friday, Kyodo News reported.

His friends - Masaru Sudo, 49, and Yoshimi Shoji, 49 - were also presidents of troubled auto parts companies, but neither enterprise was on the brink of collapse, according to Japanese media and company employees.

In fact, the two had been pouring money into Spot to keep it afloat.

“They were bound by an extremely deep friendship,” said Nakazawa, a spokesman for Shoji’s Toko company who identified himself only by his surname. “Company employees would always laugh at the way they would always get together after work.

“They were known to visit the race track together,” Nakazawa said.

Kobayashi had enjoyed a brief moment of fame in 1990 - the peak of Japan’s asset-inflated “bubble” economy. A thoroughbred he owned had beat incredible odds to win Japan’s biggest horse racing prize, the Japan Derby.

But the million-dollar horses he bought after that failed to win any big prizes, said writer Kotaro Abe of Horse News. As his horses stopped performing, the fortunes of his company Spot began to decline as well.

A salesman for Sudo’s company, who only gave his surname, Kono, said the three often visited each others’ homes, a rare practice in Japanese business, and were regular drinking partners.

“Sudo didn’t seem any different from usual before his death,” Kono said. “He was a cheerful, forward-looking person.”

Japan’s economic downturn has led to the severe cash crunch facing all but the largest companies.

As well, the ethos of the company being ultimately responsible for the welfare of employees and their families remains stronger in Japan’s medium-size firms than in its blue-chip corporations.

“This has put a heavy psychological burden on many heads of midsize firms,” said Yuichi Yamada, a management psychologist at Tokyo’s prestigious Meiji University.

Suicides by company executives have surged in recent years. The number of corporate suicides in 1996 - the latest figures available - rose by 16 percent from the previous year, according to national police figures.

“Paying off debts has become too hard. I can’t go on anymore,” Kobayashi’s suicide note to his wife said. “Please use my insurance money to alleviate the company’s financial problems.”

But personal ties appear to have as much to do with the triple suicide as financial troubles.

“I believe they felt compelled to help each other out,” Nakazawa said.