Alexander Kinmont, who famously wrote “The Irrelevance of Japan&rdquo
Alexander Kinmont, who famously wrote “The Irrelevance of Japan” report in 2002 is planning to start a hedge fund focused on the very country he lambasted reported Bloomberg this week. Kinmont left Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities in Tokyo this July where he was a managing director of Japan equity strategy. The new venture is called Milestone Asset Management Co, and is based in Tokyo. Currently the firm offers a long-only fund but it seems recent market volatility, which has thrown up a number of short stock opportunities, has prompted Kinmont to launch an equity l/s hedge fund. No concrete details on the fund are known as it is still in the planning stage. He told Bloomberg that the fund was being launched because “Japan is cheap for the first time in a generation. The fund-raising environment is extremely difficult but experience shows when it’s difficult to raise money it’s usually the case that capital can be invested at attractive returns.” Despite Kinmont’s bearish stance on Japan in his 2002 report he later reversed his opinion in a 2009 report entitled “The Relevance of Japan”.
