Analysis-No longer silent, Japan asset managers flex muscle in legacy to Abe

TOKYO : Japan's asset managers nudged the volume up another notch at shareholder meetings this year, increasingly opposing management proposals and adding momentum to a policy of attracting foreign investors initiated by slain former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

This year's cases add to a gradual change in voting sparked by Abe's corporate stewardship code in 2014, and which gained impetus in 2017 with a revision requiring the disclosure of voting records for each agenda item at shareholder meetings. Abe was shot and killed this month during an election campaign.

Domestic asset managers have voted"against management in increasing amounts every year for the last five years," said Seth Fischer, founder of Hong Kong-based Oasis Management, which has invested in Japanese firms including Toshiba Corp. In another vote this year, Singapore-based 3D Investment Partners' campaign to bring its nominees onto the board of IT firm Fuji Soft Inc received unexpectedly high support of nearly 40 per cent.

Domestic asset managers have been less supportive of company management than some global peers, showed a report by shareholder advisory SquareWell Partners which analysed voting for incumbent director elections at Japan's 100 biggest firms. Daiwa Securities Group Inc's Daiwa Asset Management and other major asset managers this year tightened rules for director voting at firms engaged in cross-shareholding, which still account for about 30 per cent of Japan's $6 trillion stock market.

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