Capitalising on change: Japan’s growth champions

Upheaval can create opportunity. Baillie Gifford’s Japan Team seeks out companies that will derive the greatest long-term benefit from transformational forces impacting business and broader society. In this podcast, investment manager Matthew Brett identifies four ‘structural growth’ drivers and the portfolio companies taking advantage of them. Background: Matthew Brett is the investment manager of The Baillie Gifford Japan Trust and our Japanese Fund, as well as co-manager of the Japanese Income Growth Fund. In this episode of Short Briefings on Long Term Thinking he discusses four forces creating long-term growth opportunities: - Japan’s late embrace of digitalisation - the rising spending power of its Asian neighbours - the accelerated adoption of industrial automation - the unmet health needs of an ageing population Brett also names some of the Japanese companies driving these changes or otherwise gaining advantage, including ecommerce conglomerate Rakuten, skincare beauty firm Shiseido, machine vision specialist Keyence and Alzheimer’s drug developer Eisai. Resources: Japan: the n ext opportunity Kohei Saito: Slow Down – How Degrowth Communism Can Save The Earth Companies mentioned include: Calbee DMG Mori Eisai Keyence KOSÉ PeptiDream Rakuten Shiseido SoftBank Timecodes: 00:00 Introduction 1:45 From psychology to investment 2:25 Changing Japan 3:15 Japan’s distinguishing market characteristics 4:15 Visiting companies and other equities research 6:00 Performance versus the TOPIX 8:00 Defining digitalisation 8:30 Leaving paper behind 10:15 Rakuten’s online enterprise 10:50 The advantage of QR barcode payments 11:30 Rakuten’s loyalty points scheme 12:25 Accelerating automation and industrial robots 13:30 DMG Mori’s precision machines 14:40 Keyence and robotic vision 16:40 China’s chance of catch-up 17:40 Rising wealth of Japan’s Asian neighbours 19:00 Shiseido’s skincare advantage 20:10 Unmet healthcare needs of an ageing population 21:30 Testing further uses for Eisai’s Alzheimer’s drug 23:30 PeptiDream’s synthetic peptides 24:00 Using AI to put peptides to use 25:10 Calbee’s continued innovation 26:00 Book choice 28:50 Conclusion

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