Murakami Yoshiaki and Aya Nomura and others' research

A: Please tell us about Murakami Kazutsuga and the group commonly referred to as the Murakami fund, including Murakami Yoaki.

R: Yoaki Murakami was originally a bureaucrat at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry). After retiring in 1999, he founded Murakami Fund (M&A Consulting) and operated as an activist investor. He was arrested in 2006 on suspicion of violating the Securities Exchange Act. After moving to Singapore, he restarted investment activities in the 2010s. The group refers to figures such as his eldest daughter Aya Nomura and numerous corporate entities (Renov, Minami-Aoyama Real Estate, City Index Eleven, Esgrant Corporation, and many others). The family tree of the group is quite complex, making the full picture hard to grasp from the outside.

A: Recently, Aya Nomura has been standing out.

R: Aya Nomura is now regarded as Japan's largest individual investor. Nomura has said in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on June 24, 2025: “I have been taking on more of the basic dialogues with the investment targets. When it comes to meetings with presidents, my father often goes. My father has hardly invested since he was arrested in 2006 for violations of the Securities Exchange Act (now the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act). Because we are not in a superior-subordinate relationship, we can speak openly. I learned all of my investment methods from my father,” as stated in the article on 2025-06-24.

A: There are many Japanese companies that Nomura himself holds or has held personally.

R: He has invested in Mitsui Sumitomo Construction (delisted in December 2025), Fuji Media Holdings (4676), Alps Alpine (6770), Shinko Shoji (8141), Heiwa Real Estate (8803), NGK Spark Plug (5334), Mitsui Matsushima Holdings (1518), and Mitsui Construction Road (1776), among others.

A: Murakami Yoaki and his associates’ managed assets are believed to be in the hundreds of billions of yen.

R: All investments are currently funded entirely by their own capital. Therefore, Murakami Yoaki and Nomura are among Japan’s wealthiest individual investors and operate as a “family office” investing solely with their own funds. There is no need to heed external funders, so they do not have to worry about investment returns or exit timing.

A: In contrast, other activist investors have external backers.

R: Because there is no oversight by asset owners who provide funding, Murakami and his group can invest as they please. Regarding this, Nomura said in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on June 24, 2025: “I’m not eager to make a huge profit. The fun is in changing and improving the companies as a major shareholder. If we were managing other people’s money, we would have to profit. We can afford to disregard profits, so even if earnings are unclear and returns are not certain, we invest driven by a sense of justice, and there are times when we speak out. For Kyocera (6971), we pointed out issues related to officer terms and policy-held stock. We are not highly sophisticated investors; we Japanese parents are simply investing in a way that satisfies ourselves,” as stated in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on 2025-06-24.

R: During the era when it was known as the “Murakami Fund,” it was a fund manager that took in funds from Western institutional investors. As noted above, Murakami Yoaki was arrested in 2006 for violating the Securities Exchange Act (now the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act), and although he temporarily withdrew from the investment world, he is now a leading activist in Japan and quite aggressively operates in gray areas. Therefore, whether he can be considered a legitimate investor is questionable.

A: Murakami and associates use multiple companies to jointly acquire and hold shares. Why is that?

R: The Financial Instruments and Exchange Act stipulates that profits obtained from buying and selling over 10% of shares by a major shareholder within six months can be reclaimed by the company. To avoid legal issues, it is believed they avoid becoming a single major shareholder in one name.

A: Their investment method has also changed. In the past, they often pushed for share buybacks or dividends from companies that were hoarding more capital than necessary.

R: When Murakami Fund was active, capital efficiency-driven management had not yet permeated Japanese listed companies. However, even now, Murakami remains strongly committed to a price-to-book ratio of 1x, taking a stringent stance toward companies that fall below that benchmark.

A: What changes have you observed since the fund manager became an individual investor?