The Tax Foundation points out that one reason it made sense for Beam Inc., the makers of Jim Beam, to be bought by Suntory of Japan is the tax angle:
By putting Beam in Japan, the new company will enjoy a (slightly) lower corporate tax rate, but more importantly exemption of most profits earned abroad. That is, the new company will pay corporate taxes in each country in which it operates, without paying any additional "toll charge" for bringing those profits back home, as is done currently to U.S. multinational corporations.
Jim Beam is only the latest U.S. company to flee the developed world's most burdensome corporate tax. Other recent moves include Applied Materials, which moved from California to the Netherlands last year, a number of pharmaceutical companies, such as Perrigo, Actavis, Jazz Pharmaceuticals and Gentium, and a series of oil and gas companies.
The end result is a steady decline of the U.S. corporate sector over the last 30 years, such that there are now fewer U.S. corporations than at any time since the 1970s.