$4628 Sk Kaken thesis: 1. The stock is currently a modest value trap. 10x earnigns with a 2% dividend that has been going up with Japan's shareholder pressure campaign. I'll arbitrarily assume that'll normalize to a 3% dividend on average - sometimes it'll be a bit worse, sometimes a bit better, but that's a fine guess. On top of that, the cash pile will grow with earings which you can discount say 70%, so another 3%. Total is a low downside risk 6%/year expected return. Not great, but honestly not that bad. 2. Founder/family control is the blocker. Shikoku Kousan owns 31.88%, and Fujii Minoru, Fujii Kunihiro, and Fujii Mitsuhiro own another roughly 9.3%, so the Fujii-side block is about 41% excluding treasury shares. The company also has 2.18m treasury shares, about 13.9% of issued shares, with no votes. 3. The relevant entity is 四国興産有限会社 / Shikoku Kousan, located in Takarazuka, Hyogo. It is listed as established on September 1, 1998, so as of June 16, 2026, it is 27 years and about 9.5 months old. That is much younger than SK Kaken itself, which was founded in 1955 and incorporated in 1958. 4. The patriarch is almost certainly Fujii Minoru, the SK Kaken founder. He is 93, turning 94 on September 1, 2026. - Heads you get a safe 6%/year turn. Tails, the patriarch passes away and you get a 15% /year expected return. If you assign even 30% odds to tails, this is a fantastic risk adjusted bet. If the patriarch was even 10 years younger, that looks far more questionable. If anyone else has these age-as-a-catalyst plays, please comment or DM me.

Been reviewing Japanese longs all morning. Look at this example Tanabe Engineering $1828. It now trades for 7x earnings with 16% return on capital. It has a 4.5% dividend yield. They tripled operating income in a decade. There are so many companies like this, from unrelated industries, that peaked exactly at the end of February. This type of small cap Japanese value / GARP stock is in a bear market. This one had a 25% drawdown.

Japan deep value getting clobbered last few days. Rough out there!

The single biggest issue in American society by a wide margin.

The folks at Oasis are sharp, but not sure how well Kadokawa (TYO 9468) will work. I lost patience on the co. Large trove of IPs but awful execution. Oasis is spot on in their activist pitch to replace the CEO. Even at peak ebit (fy23) though of ¥26bn it would trade at a bit over 15x ev/ebit. Not cheap. Anime manga is growing worldwide, but they can't seem to capture much of the economics. I've also grown much more bearish on gaming. They also have an education / web services biz hodgepodge of random 'other' businesses unrelated to core. Bandai namco isn't a pure play, but much cheaper. Toei animation is pure play, but basically a bet on 2 IPs. Other names are too small for institutional / bigger investors. I'd rather own either Toei animation or Bandai namco today. I don't own any of these though. Still wishing Oasis luck. Their deck on Kadokawa is spot on. If oasis can really replace the ceo and change management mentality fully, this bet could work. The peak ebit figure would have been a lot higher if the co was leaner and didn't give up Elden Ring economics to BandaiNamco. Trying to make a big Japanese co leaner seems very hard though.

I sat down with Taiwanese investor @DaBao_ in his first-ever recorded video interview Key takeaways: - The Taiwanese stock market is becoming overheated - He likes companies that offer mission-critical services - TSMC's story is intact - The Taiwan invasion threat is overblown

One of my favourite Japanese ideas is Kitazato corp $368A. Founder led, Japanese company with a large (30% ex US) market share in IVF fertility treatment. Large tailwinds as popularity of IVF continues to grow. The co has been smashed down 25% from IPO last year. This isn't an