Hibiki Path Advisors (“The Company”) representative director Yuya Shimizu, met with the management of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (“TSE”) on the 22nd of November to exchange views on various measures to strengthen the competitiveness of the Japanese capital markets.

During the meeting, we were able to ascertain TSE’s desire of making Japan’s capital market attractive to foreign investors and attract quality investors.

Thinking and acting out-of-the-box, TSE invested in Minsestu Co., a company that operates an IR communication platform called “Minna No Setsumeikai” (everyone’s briefing) that provides information on financial results, earnings briefings, and scheduling of interviews between foreign investors, securities companies, and listed companies.

Foreign Investors are, in our view, hesitant to invest more in Japan because of the lack of disclosure information in English. For example, only 45.1% (as of July 2022) of Japanese companies disclose basic English material such as quarterly financial statements. TSE being aware of the critical situation has prepared an “English Disclosure Practice Handbook” and distributed it to listed companies to encourage companies to disclose English information.

This issue is highly important to the improvement of the Japanese Capital market quality. Making the Japanese stock market more attractive to investors around the world would not only be a great benefit to issuing companies and institutional investors such as ourselves but also to pension funds, and individual investors who directly invest their funds. To avoid being viewed as close-minded and attract foreign investors, we believe that the management of all listed companies should promote positive and constructive dialogue with both domestic and foreign investors.

In our capacity not only as an investor but also as a Japanese stakeholder, we would like to continue to provide information to all stakeholders to develop the Japanese capital markets.

This comment does not constitute a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any specific securities, nor does it constitute advice on investment, legal, tax, accounting, or any other matter.

(Reference link)
July 2022 Letter to Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc.(Re-posting)