Author: Aki Matsumoto

Executive Director, Head of CG Research at METRICAL INC., involving in the investment management since 1984. Chartered Financial Analyst.

METRICAL:CG Top 20 Stocks Fell With Underperformance Against TOPIX and JPX400

2020-11-02 posted by

After an upward trend through the previous months, stock prices fell toward the end of the month in October on concerns about the rising number of coronavirus cases in Europe and North America. The CG Rating Score Top 20 stock indexes significantly underperformed the two indices. CG Top 20 stock prices fell 5.41% in October, while TOPIX and JPX400 closed down 2.81% and 2.75% respectively. However, the cumulative return of CG Top 20 stock prices kept significant outperformance against the both indices (see chart below).

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METRICAL: September CG Stock Performance

2020-10-02 posted by

September stocks edged slightly higher after surged in the previous month. CG Top 20 stocks gained with solid outperformed against TOPIX and JPX400.

Stock prices kept positive return in September, followed by the rally in the previous few months.TOPIX and JPX400 closed slightly higher +0.52% and +0.11% respectively for the month. CG Top 20 stocks average climbed 2.28% for the month, increasing the outperformance against the both market indices.

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METRICAL:Stock Prices of Family Companies and Investment Strategies

2020-10-02 posted by

In the previous article, based on the study classified the 3 groups of the universe companies by the ownership of major shareholders: (a) Companies with major shareholders that hold >=50% of shares, (b) Companies with major shareholders that hold >=20% and <50% of shares and (c) Companies without major shareholders that hold >=20% of shares. A subsidiary and an affiliate company owned by a parent company or founder’s family company show superior performance in the key performance measures such as ROA and ROE and Tobin’s Q. In this point, it would be an effective way for a listed parent company to raise the return measures such as ROA and ROE of the parent company by consolidating the subsidiary or the affiliate company with relatively higher return. Such a case is increasingly occurred. We introduced investment strategies to buy listed subsidiaries (and affiliated companies) in anticipation of the acquisition of listed subsidiaries with high profit margins of the parent company.
At this time, on the contrary, we focused on family companies whose stock prices have remained lower. There are several purposes for going public, but if one of the purposes is the diversification of funding measures, the purpose wouldn’t’ be achieved in this situation where the stock price is low. There would be an option to reconsider listing on the stock market. From the management side, going private would be an alternative through MBO etc. The table below shows the family companies in our universe with Tobin’s Q less than 0.8, divided into 2 groups of family’s ownerships more than 50% or more than 20% and less than 50%. For a company that suffered low ROA and ROE, the low performance would be a reason for the low share price. However, some companies that have high ROA and ROE are traded at low. For a company in which there is no problem with return performance, but the share price remains low, it may be an option to consider “going private.” Aside from whether or not an investor actually acts such an effort in the engagement, this is an investment strategy to focus on such a viewpoint.

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METRICAL:Corporate Government Rating of Japan’s 1,800 Companies (July 2020)

2020-08-06 posted by

So far, we have been conducting analysis focusing on the relationship between improvement of corporate governance and stock price and key performance measures (ROE, ROA). This is the reason that we are keeping close eyes on the enhancement of corporate governance in the perspective of long-term investors. In addition, we decided to analyze the key performance measures based on the past 3 years average ROE and ROA from this month, as maximizing the shareholder value for the long-term or sustainability is a common goal of public companies and shareholders.

It goes without saying that the stock price is one of the important indicators of a public company. In the previous monthly letter as well, I mentioned that the disclosure information of IRs and shareholder meetings is highly correlated with stock prices (Tobin’s Q), key performance measures (ROE, ROA), and comprehensive corporate governance scores. Information disclosure is a very important starting point for management transparency. In fact, the stock price also shows the results of efforts to disclose the above information. Metrical reshuffles the composites of the top 20 companies based on the total corporate governance score as of July every year and provides the performance comparison between CG Top20 stock prices and the stock market indices (TOPIX, JPX400) monthly. It was this month in July that we reviewed the 20 composite companies (the corporate governance score itself changes each month). Lately, the members of the composite companies of CG Top 20 changed from the limited large companies for several years ago, as we expanded the universe from slightly more than 500 companies to 1,800 companies and other companies are willing to improve the corporate governance. This year, 6 companies have been replaced since last year. The 4 completely new companies are Shionogi Pharmaceuticals, Meitec, Kenedix, Net One Systems and NSD. Kakaku.com and Omron returned to the top 20 club again, raising the scores.

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