How a part-time actor got lead role at RM10.4b stock fund
TAKAHIRO Kusakari went from being a self- described bum getting by on bit-part acting roles in Tokyo to calling the shots at a US$ 2.6 billion ( RM10.4 billion) stock fund.
His life changed in 2007 when the then 28-year- old stumbled into a seminar by the legendary investor Atsuto Sawakami, the founder of Japan’s biggest independent mutual fund. Sawakami saw a spark and later offered him a job. What followed was a meteoric ascent from backoffice lackey to analyst, then fund manager and finally chief investment officer.
As it turns out, Kusakari’s lack of experience probably worked in his favor. His mentor has preached the gospel of long-term investing for more than four decades and says most people in finance don’t really get what the term means, so it made sense to turn to someone from outside the industry.
“He’s a rascal,” Sawakami said in an interview, using an affectionate Japanese term that parents reserve for headstrong children. “He makes his own decisions” without seeking a consensus, the 69-year- old said. “I gave him a back- office job and watched to see if he’d grow.”
Kusakari is a rare example of a person in Japan who diverged from a standard career path and then rose to the top of a profession. He’s also a case study in how a famous stock picker deals with the difficulty of passing on his life’s work.
And it is difficult, as both men found out. Investors pulled 64.1 billion yen ( RM2.6 billion) from the Sawakami Fund in 2013, the year Kusakari took over. Outflows continued for two more years, bringing the total to 126.5 billion yen. While Kusakari says this was down to profit-taking in the world-beating stock rally under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, others are not so sure.
“The founder stepped down, so I think they lost some impetus,” said Hideto Fujino, who runs the US$ 1.9 billion asset manager Rheos Capital Works Inc. He says he sees Sawakami as the father of Japanese investing and his fund as a major rival. “Many investors had great trust in Sawakami himself.”
Kusakari graduated college
His life changed in 2007 when the then 28-year-old stumbled into a seminar by the legendary investor Atsuto Sawakami, the founder of Japan’s biggest independent mutual fund. Sawakami saw a spark and later offered him a job.
with an architecture degree in 2001. Failing to find a job, he got by on theater acting gigs, TV commercials and modeling work. His biggest role was as a student drafted to be a kamikaze pilot in a play to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. “I was basically a bum,” he said.
As Kusakari watched his friends get wealthier in the boom years before the financial crisis, he decided to try again to get a full-time job and ended up landing a position as a mortgage broker. That got him interested in finance, which led him to Sawakami’s seminar.
“I was blown away,” Kusakari said. “Usually, people talk about making money and urge you to buy their fund, but he said that if we don’t make an effort now, it’s going to impact our children and grandchildren. He spoke about our responsibility as adults” to build capital for the future.
Less than three years after he started managing money, at the age of just 33, Kusakari took charge of one of Japan’s most famous investment vehicles.
The Sawakami Fund, which had more than 118,000 investors at the end of August, follows a value strategy: buy companies making products consumers will use in the future, add to holdings when everyone else is selling and trim when they’re buying. Its top picks are Toyota Motor Corp., Bridgestone Corp. and Nidec Corp., and it’s held most positions for more than a decade. The fund has a total return of 95 per cent since its inception in 1999. —WP-Bloomberg