Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco put an article with its podcast of the interview with Ken Hokugo by Sean Creehan and Paul Tierno on Japanese corporate governance reform.
In this episode of our series Rethinking Asia, we spoke with Ken Hokugo, head of Corporate Governance and the director of Hedge Fund Investments at Japan’s Pension Fund Association, which manages more than $120 billion in assets. Ken is also a globally recognized expert on and strong advocate for Japanese corporate governance reform. The opinions expressed by Ken in the podcast are solely his and not those of his organization, the Pension Fund Association.
Ken discussed some of the challenges that Japan faces implementing corporate governance reform. Notably, the practice of cross-shareholdings and the lack of truly independent directors sacrifice corporate success for management stability and dampen investor confidence in Japanese stocks. Ken discusses how cross-shareholding, among other practices, is entrenched due to a host of historic and structural factors.