Jesper Koll: Why the Smart Money Is Moving to Japan

Foreign net purchases of Japanese equities exceeded 5.4 trillion yen in 2025. The Nikkei 225 has passed levels last seen in 1989. Warren Buffett has raised his stakes in Japan’s five major trading houses. Corporate governance reforms that were dismissed as cosmetic a decade ago are producing measurable results, and real wages are rising for the first time in a generation, along with domestic demand and an inflation rate that reads as growth rather than overheating.

Much of the world has not caught up with this yet. Jesper Koll has been in Japan since 1986, and he will speak on what is behind those numbers at the Tech for Impact Summit 2026 in Tokyo on April 26.

Forty years in Japan

Koll arrived in 1986. He has since been chief economist for Japan at JPMorgan, chief strategist and head of research at Merrill Lynch, and founding CEO of WisdomTree Japan. He is now expert director at Monex Group, the online financial services company, and sits on the investment committee of the Japan Catalyst Fund.

He has published through the asset bubble, the deflation years, the demographic alarms, the earthquakes, and several political reinventions. He has served on Japanese government advisory committees, sits on the board of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, and is one of the few non-Japanese members of the Keizai Doyukai, the Japan Association of Corporate Executives. Governor Yuriko Koike appointed him Global Ambassador for Tokyo’s Financial Center initiative.

He calls himself a Japan optimist. His Substack newsletter carries that name. In the Nikkei and the international press he has argued for years that an aging population, a cautious corporate culture, and a thick regulatory environment are pushing Japanese companies to change.

The thesis

Koll’s case is that Japan is not having a good quarter so much as going through a generational reordering of how capital is allocated, how companies are governed, and how labor markets work. In 2023 the Tokyo Stock Exchange required listed companies to disclose plans for improving capital efficiency and share prices, and began naming those that did not comply, a “name and shame” mechanism that works on a corporate culture built around reputation. Cross-shareholdings, the mutual equity stakes that shielded management from shareholders, are unwinding at the fastest pace in decades. In 2025 roughly seven percent of all listed companies were under some form of takeover pressure, a figure that would have been unthinkable five years earlier.

Koll has written about the end of what he calls Japan’s “Lazy Balance Sheet” era. Japanese companies hoarded cash for years at levels that baffled international investors. In 2025 corporate cash holdings fell, buybacks rose, and demand deposits began shifting into time deposits for the first time in over a generation. Koll reads that as companies and households repositioning for higher rates and higher growth.

On demographics, Koll describes the present as a “demographic sweet spot.” Labor scarcity is forcing automation spending. Wages are rising in real terms. Companies are investing in people, technology, and operational efficiency because cheap labor is no longer available. The tight labor market is also feeding domestic consumption through higher wages.

A weak yen has made Japanese assets cheap for foreign buyers and helped exporters. Foreign direct investment is accelerating. Semiconductor manufacturers, AI companies, and clean energy firms are opening or expanding in Japan. The fiscal stimulus package is estimated at 3.4 percent of GDP.

His 2026 outlook, in the Japan Surprises series, projects that Japan’s inflation will keep accelerating and end up meaningfully higher than in other major economies. Koll does not treat that as a warning. He reads it as the end of thirty years of deflationary psychology.

Governance and impact

Koll argues that the governance reforms are about more than ROE targets. A company unwinding cross-shareholdings and returning capital also has to answer to shareholders, employees, and communities about what it is for, and many are doing so for the first time.

Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, the world’s largest pension fund with assets above $1.5 trillion, has been a leading proponent of ESG integration. The revised Stewardship Code asks institutional investors to engage portfolio companies on sustainability. Koll’s term for the next phase is “productive capitalism”: capital put into real economic activity, innovation, and long-term value instead of parked in low-yield instruments or left on balance sheets. For executives weighing Japan entry, partnerships, or allocation decisions, he says this is the shift to watch.

At T4IS 2026

Koll is expected to cover the mechanics of Japan’s capital market change and what it means for leaders deploying technology and capital for impact at scale. He also reads the reforms as a case study in how a mature economy reinvents itself.

Other speakers include former Minister Taro Kono on policy, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson on decentralized infrastructure, GLOBIS founder and president Yoshito Hori with the keynote on entrepreneurial leadership and human capital, Kathy Matsui, general partner at MPower Partners and author of the original “Womenomics” thesis, on impact venture capital, SmartNews CEO Ken Suzuki on media, and Commons Asset Management’s Ken Shibusawa on multi-generational stewardship.

Why attend

The money coming into Japan is institutional, repositioning on governance changes, regulatory clarity, and macro fundamentals. According to Invesco, global investors remain underweight Japanese equities relative to the opportunity, which suggests the inflows have further to run.

For corporate leaders the change goes beyond portfolio allocation. Companies shedding cross-shareholdings are, in many cases, looking for outside partners, joint ventures, and market-entry counterparts for the first time. Japanese startups are looking for global distribution. Institutional investors with new stewardship mandates are looking for companies with credible impact records. Koll has been writing about all three since the 1980s.

The Tech for Impact Summit 2026 takes place on April 26 in Tokyo. Seats are limited and allocated by invitation. Request your invitation to join Jesper Koll and other global leaders shaping the future of technology, investment, and impact.