Daily Brief Japan: Fast Retailing, Taisho Pharmaceutical Holdin, TSE Tokyo Price Index TOPIX and more

In today’s briefing:

March 2024 Nikkei 225 Rebal – Socionext, Disco, and a Consumer Goods Stock to ADD and ¥1trn To Trade
Taisho Pharmaceutical (4581 JP): Japan Catalyst Pushes for a Bump
MBOs Would Open the Door to Investment for Companies that Weren’t Invested for Fear Of “Value Trap”

March 2024 Nikkei 225 Rebal – Socionext, Disco, and a Consumer Goods Stock to ADD and ¥1trn To Trade

Minimal changes in the rankings since last time. Socionext (6526), Disco (6146), and a Consumer Goods stock (Zozo (3092) top-ranked, Ryohin Keikaku (7453) a better choice) are ADDs.
The DELETEs are still Takara Holdings (2531), Pacific Metals (5541), Sumitomo Osaka Cement (5232) with a dark horse candidate in Hitachi Zosen (7004) to replace Takara.
There is the upweight to Nitori (9843) AND funkiness with Fast Retailing (9983) to consider. We are right on the threshold. The question is whether it gets “help” in January.

Japan Catalyst’s press release supports the idea of a Taisho Pharmaceutical Holdin (4581 JP) MBO but not the proposed offer price as it implies a P/B less than 1.0x.
The press release is a discovery exercise encouraging other like-minded shareholders to show their hand. The shares are trading marginally above the JPY8,620 offer.
While justifiable, a bump is unlikely due to the lack of a substantial activist shareholder, irrevocables, no competing bid and the offer’s 55.5% premium to the undisturbed price.

The fact that many IPO companies either don’t need to raise capital or don’t share the same goal of going public is the crux of the problem.
It would be conducive to improving quality of TSE as a whole if companies that cannot share the objectives of a listed company with shareholders are delisted through an MBO.
An MBO by the founding family would open the door to investment for companies that have been unable to invest for fear of falling into the “value trap.”

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