The Tokyo office of Gavin Anderson & Co is gearing up for the increased business it expects in the wake of the government’s Big Bang financial reforms.
Ross Rowbury, who left his job as head of foreign equity at BZW in Tokyo earlier in the year, joined the agency’s team in October as a senior consultant. He will work alongside another new recruit: Masaki Kai came on board in September following a stint with venture capitalists Shoko Fund. Rowbury and Kai will be working with senior vice president Deborah Hayden for the agency’s current clients while also trying to generate new business.
‘When I left BZW I was a firm believer in the potential of investor relations in Japan and was looking at the possibility of doing it on my own,’ says Rowbury, adding that he came to the conclusion that such a successful one-man-band agency would be very difficult to achieve. He believes that IR for leading companies is increasingly global and you need the back-up of a bigger operation – not to mention the database and profile support it can provide. So when the offer came in from Gavin Anderson he decided to run with it.
Rowbury remains upbeat about the investor relations potential in the country – both for domestic and international companies. ‘There is an ever increasing amount of money being directed at foreign equities here,’ he says, pointing to the changes afforded by Big Bang, the low returns of domestically invested funds and the larger number of young Japanese fund managers in key positions having returned from education and work overseas.
Japanese companies are also waking up to the need to improve their own investor relations programs. Kai comes to Gavin Anderson having spent just over three years at Shoko Fund where, among other things, he held responsibility for investor relations and human resources. He is keen to adapt the techniques used by Shoko in raising funds to help his new clients at the agency and is working on expanding the number of Japanese clients on the books.
‘Japanese companies are lacking in disclosure and often don’t know how to communicate with foreign investors,’ says Kai, suggesting he hopes to help change that situation with some of his new clients.
