8 September 2009
Japaninvest S-C Network - targets 60+ company visits by year end
Japaninvest launched the S-C Network in May 2009 and has now visited and written on in excess of 30 companies, ranging from micro cap companies such as Watabe Wedding (4696) to interesting, often undercovered larger caps such as Toppan Forms (7862). The S-C Net Network is overseen by top rated Ji Small Cap analyst, Kazue Yanagisawa. The initiative was designed to address what we perceive to be an industry- wide loss of coverage on interesting, small cap Japanese stocks, thereby releasing value to both companies and investors. Our research screening reveals over 2000 Japanese companies with no analyst coverage at all: over 500 of these companies have a market cap greater than $100m. We continue to target stocks which have sufficient market cap and liquidity to be deemed investable. The team remains be very responsive to client demand. We believe small cap valuations in Japan are currently overly low and with the DPJ government set to make significant changes, we have increased our focus on "DPJ beneficiaries" in areas such as consumption and outsourcing. We aim to have written on around 60-75 companies by November 2009 (6 months after launch).
