The value of deals by Japanese firms abroad has topped $110 billion so far this year, according to data provider Dealogic Wednesday, a shopping spree driven by a strong yen and limp domestic market. Softbank's $20 billion take-over of US mobile carrier Sprint Nextel was a major contributor to the overseas shopping bonanza this year, which saw just over 700 deals worth $110.3 billion, beating last year's $84 billion tally and far outpacing $36 billion in 2010, the figures showed.

Softbank's announcement in October that it will buy 70 percent of the third-biggest US mobile carrier was Japan's biggest-ever overseas deal after Japan Tobacco's $19 billion purchase of Britain's Gallaher Group Plc in 2007. Headline-grabbing deals in the past couple of years have included Takeda Pharmaceutical's 9.6 billion euro ($12.7 billion) purchase of Swiss drugmaker Nycomed and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial's deal to buy the Royal Bank of Scotland's aircraft leasing arm for about $7.3 billion.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012