Are U.S. takeover artists ready to breach the clubby confines of the Tokyo stock market? In what appears to be the first direct hostile raid on a Japanese company by a foreigner, T. Boone Pickens disclosed last week, the Texas-based corporate raider has accumulated a 20% stake in Koito Manufacturing, a key supplier of car parts to Toyota.
Pickens' foray drew flak from Tokyo investors, who saw the move as an attempt to elicit greenmail -- the money that a company pays raiders when it buys back their shares at a costly premium. The Japanese government is investigating whether Pickens ambushed...