“Alpha resides in complex, structurally changing domains that require on-the-ground, global intelligence gathering.”
We attended the inaugural edition of Sohn Tokyo at the Roppongi Hills Club in Mori Tower today. The main event was standing room only and featured Sohn format stock pitches from the following investors:
It was a great mix of styles in the lineup ranging from classic value in Ruane Cunniff to short selling / activist in Oasis and Blue Orca, to APAC specialists in Indus Capital.
After the paywall, we list all the companies pitched and discuss a few that caught our attention. More Sohn posts will follow, and if you’d like to hear more about any particular name, please reach out by replying to this email or through DMs.
Before we dive in, a word from our sponsors below, who we also had the pleasure of meeting in Tokyo.
The Investor Perspectives Private Session: Thoughts on Japan
The morning kicked off with a closed-door Chatham house rules session with investors and allocators. Some Japan specific, and AI-enriched, comments below:
“Our experience investing in Japan has been mixed for a number of years since we started investing in Japan. The volatility did not exist for a number of years until recently, where it started spitting out interesting opportunities, and we refocused ourselves on Japan.”
“Our macro managers who were not participating in Japan per se, they are growing their footprint in Japan now because yields have become more interesting. The yen has become more interesting because the volatility has increased a lot. Now we’ve been seeing good opportunities there, and the returns have come back. So they are not double-digit outcomes that we are seeing, but at least mid-single-digit diversified returns that we are seeing in the US economy.”
“Japan’s appeal is driven by changes—governance reforms, succession planning, and business portfolio changes—rather than just cheap valuations.”
“Effective activism in Japan is business-strategy led, patient, and engagement-focused, aiming at mindset and decision-making changes over time.”
“Governance reforms have improved direct company–investor dialogue and heightened corporate self-awareness, though progress remains ongoing.”
“Global allocators should view Japan as a mosaic of company-specific situations. Japan is not one trade. It requires local understanding and patience to discern real vs. cosmetic change.”
The Pitches
This is the list of main event pitches:
Let’s get to the pitches. By accessing the content below, you agree to our terms and conditions.
Rigaku (Indus Capital Management)
X-Ray: A bottleneck in the bottleneck of Metrology
As of October 16, 2026, Rigaku is trading around ¥1,500, below the price Onto paid for its 27% stake (~¥1,800 per share).
• The Physics Constraint: As semiconductor companies transition to vertical structures in order to scale, standard optical inspection fails because light merely bounces off the top layer.
• The Metrology Bottleneck: X-ray diffraction provides the sub-nanometer depth precision required to identify defects before wasting $100,000 chips, but X-ray tools historically operated too slowly and expensively for high-volume manufacturing.
• The Hybrid Solution: Combining X-ray hardware with high-performance optical software unlocks the “holy grail” of metrology: X-ray precision at factory-floor optical speeds.