Yoshiaki Murakami

@1tm122n22m, Atma Unum

Yoshiaki Murakami: Japanese investor, activist, and founder of the Murakami Family Foundation. Notable for his activist fund and intervention in merger negotiations. Author of multiple books on investment and money. #YoshiakiMurakami #Investment #Activist https://wp.me/p3JLEZ-4OA

Yoshiaki Murakami (村上 世彰, Murakami Yoshiaki, born August 11, 1959) is a Japanese investor, bull, former bureaucrat of the MITI, co-founder of “Murakami Fund” (Japanese: 村上ファンド), and founder of the Murakami Family Foundation (村上財団).

Activist Watch

Activist fund City Index Eleventh has become the top shareholder in Japan’s Aozora Bank after raising its stake to 8.9%, says Bloomberg. With short interest reaching 27.6% of the free float, the bank is the most shorted stock on Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average. Bets agains Aozora have increased since the bank rattled investors with an unexpected loss on its US commercial-property investments.

The Tokyo-based fund, linked to prominent activist investor Yoshiaki Murakami, has been rapidly increasing its holding in the bank over the past few days; last week it disclosed a 5% stake. City Index said it may make important proposals to Aozora. The fund has managed to bolster other firms’ share prices with its focus on improving profitability.

Money Week. 15 March 2024

Career

Murakami was born in Osaka. After graduating from University of Tokyo, he joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (the current Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry), and decided to establish the “Murakami Fund” around his own consulting firm, in order to become a “player” himself before the age of 40. He gained attention as a “vocal shareholder” through obtaining shares in publicly traded companies that fail to optimize their cash reserves and idle assets, and proactively making shareholder proposals to maximize enterprise values, at times making open critiques at shareholder meetings towards management that take shareholders lightly, in an environment where Japanese shareholders tend to be (or are perceived to be, as a generalization) passive towards getting involved in the management of corporations. His typical style of investment involves obtaining shares in a target corporation, and making them focus on profitable business domains in order to maximize shareholder value. Representative transactions include Tokyo Style, Nippon Broadcasting System, Hanshin Electric Railway, etc. As the sizes of investments grew, 6 years after the establishment of the Fund, Murakami was arrested for accusations of insider trading of shares in Nippon Broadcasting Systems, though there still are mixed opinions on the legal interpretation of the situation.

“Money, for a corporation, is equivalent to blood for the human body. The flow of money (blood) is essential for the growth of corporations, and there are negative side effects to the health of a corporation if this flow is blocked.”

Yoshiaki Murakami

Idemitsu Kosan / Showa Shell Integration

Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd. and Showa Shell Sekiyu K.K. entered into merger negotiations in July 2015, but the founding family of Idemitsu, major shareholders in the company, was against the merger, and discussions between the family and Idemitsu management were forced into a halt. In the fall of 2017, a person in the financial industry that was close to the founding family requested that Murakami advise the family. Murakami obtained under 1% of the outstanding shares in Idemitsu, in order to get involved “sincerely, with the perspective of a shareholder, and not as an outsider”. By February 2018 he was in contact with Idemitsu management, and bridged the gap between management and the founding family. On July 10, 2018, Idemitsu and Showa Shell officially announced their agreement to merge. Idemitsu Chairman Takashi Tsukioka made a rare public statement praising Murakami, saying “It is a fact that Murakami, a distinguished investor, advised the founding family from a fair standpoint on the necessity of the merger in order to maximize the joint benefit of all stakeholders including the founding family, improving the relationship between Idemitsu and the family. I thank him for his selfless efforts to date.”

Books

• “Service industry being culled out'' by the market and service industry being selected” by customers – an era in which service providers are exposed to market forces and international competition” (co-authored with Koichi Akaishi and Norifumi Ogawa), Diamond Inc., February 1999. ISBN 4-478-50163-7
• “The Era of Outsourcing – A Group of Businesses Opening a 33 Trillion Yen Market in 2010” (edited by Yoshiaki Murakami/authored by Kunihiro Oishi et al.) Nikkei BP, April 1999, ISBN 4-8222-9114-6
• “The Frontline of the Japanese Film Industry” (co-authored with Norifumi Ogawa) Kadokawa Shoten, May 1999, ISBN 4-04-883576-9
• 『生涯投資家』文藝春秋、2017年6月[27]、ISBN 978-4-16-390665-2
• “A Dog Named Money: Introduction to Money” for Ages 12 and Up (Supervised by Yoshiaki Murakami) Asuka Shinsha, October 2017, ISBN 978-4-86410-576-7
• “The story about money that I want to tell you now” Gentosha, September 2018, ISBN 978-4-344-03359-7
• “Yoshiaki Murakami teaches high school students about investing. ” KADOKAWA , July 2020. ISBN 978-4-04-108871-5 .
• “Manga Lifetime Investor” Bungeishunju, December 2020. ISBN 978-4-16-391295-0 . (Original work, manga: Nishi Aznable)
• “If you read the N/S High Investment Department Textbook, you will never have to worry about money for the rest of your life,” Toyo Keizai Inc., December 2021. ISBN 978-4-492-73360-8 . (Supervised by N/S High Investment Department)
• “The World’s Easiest Investment and Money Story: Lifelong Investor vs Lifelong Manga Artist” Bungeishunju (Bunshun Bunko), February 2022. ISBN 978-4-16-791832-3 . (Co-authored with Rieko Saibara)

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