TOKYO -- Japan Tobacco and 10 other Japanese companies are moving to close their annual books in December starting in 2014, to align themselves better with overseas units as they speed up global expansion.
JT, Unicharm, Otsuka Holdings, Kagome, Asics and six others are slated to change their fiscal-year-end to December, bringing the total number of Japanese companies syncing their business year to the calendar year to 328, 20% more than in 2010. Shiseido will do the same from 2015.
