However, analyst and strategist Corné van Zeijl of asset manager Actiam doesn’t think investors will invest massively in the Japanese market now and points out that Buffett has a very diversified Japanese portfolio. “They’re trading houses that really trade everything,” he says. “From Cement to Automobiles to Chemicals”.
“Corporate governance in Japan is really getting better”
According to Van Zeijl, Buffett is responding relatively quickly to the slow opening of the Japanese stock market, which is still relatively closed to Westerners. “Corporate governance is really getting better there, because slowly but surely they want to mean more to shareholders,” he explains. “At one point, Buffett thought he wanted to be a part of it, too.”
Complex
The shares that Buffett has in Japan are generally considered to be very complex because the trading houses have such a wide range of goods. “Normally, investors don’t feel like it, but Buffett seemed to understand,” Van Zeijl continues. And besides, they were cheap. The companies had price-to-earnings ratios of just seven times expected earnings when he bought them.’
Van Zeijl says the purchase of the companies was something of a birthday present for himself. He bought the stock on his 90th birthday, “and now he’s doing well.”