Pan-Asia Catalysts/Events, Quiddity Advisors

Travis Lundy

Pan-Asia Catalysts/Events

Quiddity Advisors

Event-Driven

<ul>
<li>Today, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/dai-ichi-life-insurance" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:1109:1" rel="noopener">Dai Ichi Life Insurance (8750 JP)</a> announced a TOB for <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/benefit-one-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:14502:1" rel="noopener">Benefit One Inc (2412 JP)</a> having agreed a deal with <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/pasona-group-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:15778:1" rel="noopener">Pasona Group (2168 JP)</a> to sell into a buyback.</li>
<li>Pasona will get ¥1,526/share, and having agreed, it <a href="https://www.pasonagroup.co.jp/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=o93EYocia9U%3d&amp;tabid=100&amp;mid=460" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> the expected special profit to be booked in the FY to 31 May 2024.</li>
<li>At ¥113.6bn on a consolidated basis (¥122.3bn on parent), less ¥1.165bn of associated costs, that's ¥112.4bn at the lower end. That's ¥2,870/share. Then there's the rest of the business.</li>
</ul>


Today, Dai Ichi Life Insurance (8750 JP) announced a TOB for Benefit One Inc (2412 JP) having agreed a deal with Pasona Group (2168 JP) to sell into a buyback.
Pasona will get ¥1,526/share, and having agreed, it announced the expected special profit to be booked in the FY to 31 May 2024.
At ¥113.6bn on a consolidated basis (¥122.3bn on parent), less ¥1.165bn of associated costs, that's ¥112.4bn at the lower end. That's ¥2,870/share. Then there's the rest of the business.


Pasona (2168) - Less Wrong Than Before But How Wrong Still Depends on Nambu-San

Quality-first, Business-perspective Strategy, Urbem (HK) Limited

Steven Chen

Quality-first, Business-perspective Strategy

Equity Bottom-Up

Matching Service Japan / Equity Bottom-Up

<ul>
<li>Recruitment agency businesses have their general attractions in Japan, but we would focus on the highest-quality names like JAC Recruitment and Matching Service Japan;</li>
<li>Both companies appear to compete advantageously partly thanks to their niche focuses;</li>
<li>Both shares trade at similar valuations;</li>
<li>We feel it way more difficult to pick between the two than set them apart from the larger crowd, but here is our No. 1 pick if we have to choose.</li>
</ul>


Recruitment agency businesses have their general attractions in Japan, but we would focus on the highest-quality names like JAC Recruitment and Matching Service Japan;
Both companies appear to compete advantageously partly thanks to their niche focuses;
Both shares trade at similar valuations;
We feel it way more difficult to pick between the two than set them apart from the larger crowd, but here is our No. 1 pick if we have to choose.


Two Japanese High-Quality, Niche-Focused Recruitment Agents

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ul>
<li>We think that investors can often find attractive opportunities among companies serving the HR department;</li>
<li>When it comes to the Japanese market, employment services companies can additionally take advantage of multiple tailwinds in our view;</li>
<li>We started with our favorable and demanding metric to shortlist 25 names across various industries within the sector, further examined them in terms of growth and cash generation, and ended with three of our top picks.</li>
</ul>


We think that investors can often find attractive opportunities among companies serving the HR department;
When it comes to the Japanese market, employment services companies can additionally take advantage of multiple tailwinds in our view;
We started with our favorable and demanding metric to shortlist 25 names across various industries within the sector, further examined them in terms of growth and cash generation, and ended with three of our top picks.


Quick Picks: Top-Quality Employment Services Providers From Japan

Technical Analyst, Vermilion Research

Joe Jasper

Technical Analyst

Technical and Quantitative Research

Vermilion Research

Vermilion’s objective is to deliver timely, actionable, and unique technical research to professional investors through the application of our various technical indicators.

Our research strategists seek to highlight securities which we believe are at major inflection points, based on our various technical and quantitative indicators, and offer asymmetric risk/return profiles. Our unique research methodology, centered on relative strength, enables our strategists to deliver superior investment recommendations.

Our process begins by organizing the universe of actively traded stocks into discrete sectors, then into industry groups. We then apply our technical and quantitative tools to identify developing price trends. Once attractive trends are identified within a selected sector or group, we screen for individual stocks which we believe offer the best risk/reward profile. We provide a historical perspective that often reveals, through our long-term charts, how price patterns often repeat themselves over time.

Technical Analysis

<p style="text-align: justify;">Our weight of the evidence approach leads us to believe the market remains in the early stages of a broad-based advance, meaning a buy-the-dip mentality is warranted. While we want to acknowledge that the potential for a US-China tariff escalation remains a risk for the market, we believe this is likely to be the case for the foreseeable future. In our December International Strategy, we highlight various themes which lead to our positive outlook, including actionable trade ideas in technology, health care and manufacturing.</p>

Our weight of the evidence approach leads us to believe the market remains in the early stages of a broad-based advance, meaning a buy-the-dip mentality is warranted. While we want to acknowledge that the potential for a US-China tariff escalation remains a risk for the market, we believe this is likely to be the case for the foreseeable future. In our December International Strategy, we highlight various themes which lead to our positive outlook, including actionable trade ideas in technology, health care and manufacturing.

Global Equities Headed Up and to the Right: Technology, Health Care Leading

Stoxx Europe Small 200 Price Eur / Technical Analysis

<p>With further consolidation likely for the broad indexes, we want to stick with areas of the market that have shown an ability to outperform despite the broader consolidation. For that we are returning to Technology and Services. Roughly half of today’s individual stock recommendations are domiciled in Japan, while the remainder hail from India and Russia.</p>

With further consolidation likely for the broad indexes, we want to stick with areas of the market that have shown an ability to outperform despite the broader consolidation. For that we are returning to Technology and Services. Roughly half of today’s individual stock recommendations are domiciled in Japan, while the remainder hail from India and Russia.

Global Equity Strategy U.S. Fed Cut, Now What?

Japan

MEITEC CORPORATION provides high-end engineering outsourcing services targeting the R&D sector in various industries such as automobile, telecommunication, semiconductors, consumer electronics, and industrial machinery.

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Meitec Corp (9744 JP)

Pasona (2168) - Less Wrong Than Before But How Wrong Still Depends on Nambu-San

Pasona will get its bundle of cash selling Benefit One. That will leave ~¥135bn of net cash against a ¥60bn match-off of prepays vs A/R vs a ¥107bn...

Travis Lundy

Two Japanese High-Quality, Niche-Focused Recruitment Agents

We feel it way more difficult to pick between the two than set them apart from the larger crowd, but here is our No. 1 pick if we have to choose.

Steven Chen

Quick Picks: Top-Quality Employment Services Providers From Japan

We started with our favorable and demanding metric to shortlist 25 names, further examined them in terms of growth and cash generation, and ended...

Steven Chen

Global Equities Headed Up and to the Right: Technology, Health Care Leading

Our weight of the evidence approach leads us to believe the market remains in the early stages of a broad-based advance, meaning a buy-the-dip...

Vermilion Research

Global Equity Strategy U.S. Fed Cut, Now What?

With further consolidation likely for the broad indexes, we want to stick with areas of the market that have shown an ability to outperform despite...

Vermilion Research

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