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Message from the New Representative Director

”Arora’s departure shakes SoftBank’s global strategy”

2016-06-23 posted by

 

”Arora also assembled a reliable, well-connected team of assistants and advisers within SoftBank. A weekly conference call connecting members of “Team Nikesh” in Tokyo, London, India and on the U.S. West Coast to their leader to discuss possible investments has become established practice — an arena for information to be brought in from around the world, and the merits of promising ventures debated.

One of SoftBank’s early — and often talked about — investments is Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding. Son funded Alibaba with 2 billion yen ($19 million at current rates) out of a fondness for founder Jack Ma, who was unknown at the time. That stake has yielded some 10 trillion yen in latent gains 14 years later. Though Son is famed for his sharp foresight, what lurks behind his investment decisions is “something akin to a hobby,” he has said. “It’s produced success on occasion, but quite a few failures as well.”

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Schroders: ”Investing in the future: Japan’s focus on sustainability”

2016-06-22 posted by

”Schroders is proud to be one of a very small group of UK companies with a corporate history stretching back more than 200 years. Astonishingly, Japan is home to as many as 3,146 companies which were founded more than 200 years ago; some of which can be traced back more than 1,000 years.

Of course most of these are small, family-run and operate in niche areas, such as hotels and restaurants. Nevertheless, we can consider whether this Japanese aptitude for corporate longevity can tell us anything about the sustainability of Japanese business models in the future, and their ability to reward shareholders over time.

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IMF Official in Interview: ”Japan must take Abenomics even further”

2016-06-21 posted by

”A: The decision makes sense in light of the pace of growth in the country and the pace of growth in the global economy. At the same time, I think it’s important that attention be put on securing sustainable public financing in the long run. I think a postponement makes sense because the economy needs fiscal support rather than fiscal contraction right now. But at the same time, we would like to see a redesign of the consumption tax, where it’s introduced with increases coming in small percentages every year in the regular way, so that the decision is not political. It’s automatic, so that the effects aren’t so big, so that the growth needs of the economy can be taken care of.

But we certainly agree that the amount of public debt will need to be brought down. Getting to a primary balance is an important goal. [Japan needs to] continue to make progress in consolidation and make sure that public financing is made sustainable.

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”How are Japanese companies becoming better stewards of capital? Improving corporate governance”

2016-06-17 posted by

Japanese corporate profits are way up, even if real GDP is not.

”If you were to use just one measure, such as real GDP, to assess how Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was performing, you would conclude his policies are clearly not working: real GDP itself is flat to slightly negative since he took office.

On the other hand, if you look at the aggregate operating profit of Tokyo Stock Exchange Price index constituents as a reflection of corporate profits, it has grown more than 60% since he took office.

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Discussion Paper by Hideaki Miyajima et al : ”Does Ownership Really Matter?: The Role of Foreign Investors in Corporate Governance in Japan”

2016-06-13 posted by

”Abstract. After the banking crisis of 1997, corporate ownership in Japan shifted from an insider-dominated to an outsider-dominated structure. This paper analyzes the impact of dramatic changes in the ownership structure on corporate governance and firm value, focusing on the role of foreign institutional investors. There are two competing views on the role of increased foreign ownership. The positive view is that foreign investors have had high monitoring capability, and encourage improvements in the governance arrangement of firms, resulting in higher performance.

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Forbes： U.S. Companies Joining FTSE4Good Index, Banks and Japanese Companies Exiting

2016-06-07 posted by

“Green” indices are rising in popularity as investors increasingly seek to put business in context of its surroundings, and its wider impact. FTSE4Good, the global index provided by  FTSE Russell, measures how a company operates in terms of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors rather than what it makes — and ESG risk is everywhere, quite apart from “climate risk,” now at the forefront of attention.

Tougher inclusion criteria has just resulted in the removal of 43 companies from the index, with a startling number from Japan, where the picture of the extent of corporate governance reforms remains unclear. Its latest review sees 77 new additions to the FTSE4Good Global Index, of which 26 companies are from the United States, making it the largest contributor………..”

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“What They Do With Your Money: How the Financial System Fails Us and How to Fix It”

2016-06-07 posted by

Based on the theory that responsible behavior by institutional investors hinges in turn on stimulating a population of active citizen investors, I am attaching two of my recent articles drawn from the new book “What They Do With Your Money: How the Financial System Fails Us and How to Fix It”, by Jon Lukomnik, David Pitt-Watson and me (Yale University Press, just out). The official book launch took place on June 7.

The first article, published on the Harvard Law CG blog, sets out the costs to society and individuals when citizen investors are missing in action, and offers several proposed fixes:
https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2016/06/02/how-the-financial-system-fails-us-and-how-to-fix-it/

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HBS Professors: American Managers Seek to Avoid Legitimate Shareholder Proposals

2016-06-07 posted by

In this paper, HBS Professors Suraj, Srinivasan, and Vijayaraghavan analyze the period 2003-2013 and conclude that US managers often seek to avoid listing legitimate shareholder proposals in the proxy materials.  This is a stark contrast to the situation here in Japan, where executives must include virtually any shareholder proposal in the proxy, even if strange or rude.

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