No woman had ever run a Japanese securities firm. But Yamashita prevailed, and six months later the groundbreaking Wu, a 38-year-old Taiwanese, says her gender hasn’t interfered with her mission at Japan Asia Securities Co.
A female president isn’t all that sets Japan Asia apart from its staid peers in the Kabutocho district. The firm also bypassed the laborious process of opening an office in Tokyo. Instead of applying - and waiting - for a government license to sell securities, Yamashita, a former Nomura Securities salesman, last year bought two tiny licensed retail brokers, Marukin Securities and Kaneman Securities, and combined them into Japan Asia Securities.
And the new firm has a novel business model: Japan Asia won’t be trading many Japanese securities but selling Hong Kong P shares - Chinese companies that are registered in Hong Kong but do business on the mainland - to its high-net-worth Japanese clients. Ultimately, Wu and Yamashita want to create a firm that helps Chinese buyers shop for underpriced Japanese companies.
“Mainland Chinese businessmen are fascinated by the undervaluation of Japanese corporate assets,” says Wu, who was COO at Hong Kong-based Japan Asia Securities Group when she succumbed to Yamashita’s entreaties.
As a warm-up to future Chinese purchases, Wu is trying her hand at doing domestic Japanese deals. She claims to have 40 to 50 small M&A transactions in the pipeline.
