A structural B(e)ar Market...

Property prices outside Tokyo Station may be lurching north and the lunchtime grub scene is undoubtedly  better than it was two years ago. But things in Marunouchi are about to get very, very nasty. A big, dirty turf war is about to break out. And it's all Citigroup's fault.

You see, on Tuesday, after the long weekend is over and everyone gets back from their little villas in Hakuba, there's going to be a bar-fight. Not a drunken brawl (yet), but a long war of attrition, over where everyone is going to go for that first post-work pint every day. The scene used to be pretty clear - all nicely divided - but on Tuesday, Citigroup's equity sales boys and girls move into Marunouchi. There aren't enough bars to go around, and it ain't their manor...

Marunouchi has already been nicely carved-up. UBS and Mizuho (along with The Times) down their neck-oil in a revolting little glory hole called Drunk Bears. Nomura and Barclays Capital (obviously) slake their thirst in Grand Central downstairs. JP Morgan have got the very pleasant PCM Bar at the foot of their building and Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ tend to head to that grim little Irish place in the basement. But the problem is that NONE of these places can support a major influx of thirsty Citigroup boozers.

So where are the Citigroup chieftains going to go? Akasaka, being bloody great for bars, has rather spoilt them. The places inside the Shin Maru Biru where they now live are OK but not really the place for a wind-down slug. It's anybody's guess...