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Professor Kyoji Fukao and Professor Kwon of Nihon University have published a masterful analysis of what has been going wrong with Japan's economy during the past 20 years and what can be the key drivers of growth going forward.
The report of the NYSE Commission, issued this fall, summarized this particularreccommendation in the following way in its press release:
While independence is an important attribute for board members, the NYSE’s Listing Standards do not limit a board to just one non-independent director, and boards should seek an appropriate balance between independent and non-independent directors to ensure a proper mix of expertise, diversity and knowledge.
Entitled Charting a New Course for Growth: Recommendations for Japan's leaders, the report has an intriguing manga cover and is based on replete economic analysis. The White Paper and related materials can be downloaded at: http://www.accj.or.jp/gstf.
The well known and well-attendedTBLI Conference will be held on the 11th and 12th of November in London. http://www.tbliconference.com/ This will be the 12th TBLI Conference so far.
(BDTI has recently received this collection of interesting vignettes and musings by a fund manager in Tokyo, written over the past year. BDTI has received permission to publish them from both the recipient and the author.)
ON BEATING UP ONE FALL-GUY
On September 28, ACGA sent a formal letter tothe Ministry of Justice and keymembers ofthe Legislative Advisory Council's Company Law Sub-Committee in Japan. The letter was made public and is available on BDTI's data libary athttp://bdti.mastertree.jp/f/l0ngs7zm.
BDTIhas conducted a survey on attitudes towards corporate governance in Japan. A summary of the findings is available at http://bdti.mastertree.jp/f/c1hal6ep
Among the most interesting results were:
According to some academics, there is goodstatistical evidence of a correlation between the presence of parent companies and PE funds and superior firm performance, but the evidence is weak that the presence of independent directors improves firm performance.
BDTI hasreceived a new comment on METI'sproposed Joint Audit Committee Company. Please see below. (Admin.)
CLSA and the Asian Corporate Governance Association have published their 2010 version of CG Watch Asia. Japan's score moved up a to 57%, a level that however is still 23 percentage points below what ACGA considers to be the global best-practice score of 80%.The Japan section of the report is available on BDTI' data library. The full report can be purchased from ACGA.