RIETI Open BBL Webinar

How Welcoming Should Japan be to Shareholder Activists?

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Announcement

Since the Tokyo Stock Exchange's 2023 request for "management with capital cost in mind," investment as well as proposal by activist hedge funds in the Japanese market has increased significantly, and active discussions have been held on their role in corporate governance. At this BBL, Professor Julian Franks of London Business Council, who was well known as an expert on this field, will be invited to present how Japanese companies should respond to the increased activity of activists from an international comparative perspective. First, he will discuss the sources of corporate value enhancement from an international comparison perspective, utilizing his analysis on hedge fund activism in the Review of Financial Study. Then he analyzes the factors behind the recent surge in activism in Japan, focusing on cooperation between activists and traditional institutional investors. Finally, he proposes points of discussion on why activist interventions are always highly controversial, and what factors should be considered to address the rise of activists going forward.

Information

  • Time and Date: 12:15-13:15, Wednesday, September 30, 2026
  • Venue: Online
  • Language: English
  • Admission: Free
  • Host: Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)
  • Contact: Ms. TAKEKAWA, Conference Section
    *If the "Send by mailer" button does not work, please copy the address into your email "send to" field and connect the prefix and the suffix of the address with an "@", sending it normally.

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Speakers

Speaker:
  • Julian FRANKS FBA (Emeritus Professor of Finance, London Business School / Fellow, Research Member, ECGI)
    Julian Franks is Emeritus Professor of Finance at London Business School. An expert in corporate finance, his research focuses on bankruptcy and financial distress, corporate ownership and control, shareholder activism by both hedge funds and active asset managers, cost of capital, and regulation. His work has been published in leading finance journals, and his research on ownership and control (with Colin Mayer and Stefano Rossi) has won two international prizes. Two further papers have won best paper awards from the Journal of Financial Intermediation.
    Julian has served as Academic Director of London Business School's Centre for Corporate Governance and has held Visiting Professor positions at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
    Julian has extensive advisory and policy experience. He was formerly an adviser to the Competition and Markets Authority and a partner at the consulting firm OXERA. He previously advised Ofcom for more than 15 years, acting as an expert in three appeals to the Competition Authority, and has served as adviser to the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, as a member of the advisory board of ORR, and as a member of an appeals panel for the New Zealand Commerce Commission. He has also served on the DTI–Treasury committee reviewing the UK's insolvency code, on the Company Law Review's committees on corporate governance, and on the Breedon committee on non-bank sources of finance.
Commentator:
  • TBC
Moderator:
  • MIYAJIMA Hideaki (Faculty Fellow, RIETI / Professor Emeritus, Waseda University)