Investor interest in Japan is surging more than a year after tight pandemic travel restrictions were lifted—with more demand anticipated due to a struggling China.
“The Japanese market experienced a revival in 2023 and is seeing a new horizon in 2024,” said Shinji Wakizaka, head of the client relations management department for Nomura Securities. “We had a very active year overall for corporate access driven by built-up demand for investors visiting Japan post-Covid. We have seen a new layer of investors who are looking to rebuild their portfolios from setbacks in China and related markets.”
With all the investor attention, the sell-side firms that connect the buy-side with executives — the business known as corporate access — are under more pressure to deliver this service seamlessly. “Corporate access providers are now expected to be more creative to ensure stakeholder demands are matched in a balanced manner,” Wakizaka said.
Picking the Team
To select the members for Institutional Investor’s 2024 Japan’s Top Corporate Access Providers, we invited participants in the 2024 Japan Research Team and 2024 Japan Executive Team Surveys to provide feedback on the firms that provided the best corporate access based on specified attributes.
From the 2024 Japan Research Team survey, representing the buy-side point of view, we received responses from 179 investors at 130 firms. This group rated sell-side firms on a scale from 1 to 5 on the overall corporate access for these attributes: Conferences; Logistics; Field
Trips; Team Quality; Roadshows; and Virtual Events. Each attribute score was based on the rating given to the firm.
Each vote was weighted by the voting firm’s Japan commission range and the rating awarded to produce a table of the top ten firms.
From the 2024 Japan Executive Team, representing the corporate point of view, 99 corporates ranked their top sell-side firms on the following attributes: Investor Introductions; Conferences/Virtual Events; Field Trips/Site Visits/Reversed Road Shows; Logistics; Road Shows; Team Quality; and Investor Feedback.
The Top 10 Corporate Access Leaders, based on the corporate response, was calculated by adding together a firm’s attribute scores to produce a table of the top ten firms.