-- Hong Kong-based Sengu Capital Ltd. is starting a new hedge fund focused on improving corporate management in Japan, tapping into the country’s financial market revival.The company will start trading for the fund in early October, Chief Investment Officer Yoshihiko Ohira and Chief Operating Officer Xavier Fanjaud said in an interview. The Japan fund lured multiyear backing from HS Group Ltd., a provider of strategic capital to such fledgling managers in exchange for a cut of their fee revenue.
“More Japanese companies are improving corporate governance and selecting new management through nomination committees and in a more western way,” Ohira said. “There are more cases where CEOs are coming from outside the companies.” Sengu “speaks to the relevance of evaluating corporate strategy in Japan at a time of great advances in governance reforms, generational changes in corporate leadership,” said Michael Garrow, CIO of HS Group.
Ohira was a Japan analyst for Turiya Advisors Asia Ltd. and Pleiad Investment Advisors Ltd., the latter also an HS-backed firm. He left Pleiad in 2019 to become CIO of Hong Kong’s Luxence Capital Ltd., leading a hedge fund focused on Japan and China.