< The 2014 All-Japan Research Team Daisuke Fukushima & team Nomura First-place appearances: 0
Total appearances: 9
Team debut: 2006 After dropping to third place last year, Nomura’s Daisuke Fukushima returns to the second tier — his fifth appearance in that position over the past six years. “Fukushima has the courage of his convictions,” one client insists. Money managers cheer the analyst’s persistence on Mitsui Fudosan Co., a long-standing favorite among the 19 names in his coverage universe. The company is based in Tokyo and operates across the building, leasing and managing spaces. In April 2011, Fukushima upgraded the stock from neutral to buy, advising investors that Mitsui was enduring a round of panic selling on concerns over damage to many of its facilities from the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami the month before. Through December 2013 the shares skyrocketed 172.5 percent, to ¥3,785, trouncing the sector by 76.4 percentage points. Although they had slipped to ¥3,063 by the middle of March, the 19.1 percent drop was in line with the sector’s decline, and Fukushima is sticking with his buy rating. “The fundamentals are just beginning to improve,” he says, and Mitsui will benefit from a wave of building and infrastructure development ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.