Market Matters with Megumi Takayama from Chikara Investments

2025-02-19

In our new monthly podcast, we bring you big picture insights from leading investment specialists, exploring the opportunities, challenges and potential threats shaping investors’ portfolios. This month, we are joined by Megumi Takayama, portfolio manager and analyst at Chikara Investments, which manages CCJI Japan Income & Growth (CCJI), which has a dual objective of providing shareholders with dividend income as well as capital growth. Megumi joined Chikara in 2018, having developed her career primarily in e...

In our new monthly podcast, we bring you big picture insights from leading investment specialists, exploring the opportunities, challenges and potential threats shaping investors’ portfolios.

This month, we are joined by Megumi Takayama, portfolio manager and analyst at Chikara Investments, which manages CCJI Japan Income & Growth (CCJI), which has a dual objective of providing shareholders with dividend income as well as capital growth.

Megumi joined Chikara in 2018, having developed her career primarily in equity sales at Nomura and SMBC Nikko, where she gained extensive knowledge of the Japanese equity market.

In this month’s episode, we find out what drew Megumi to the investment industry, and portfolio management in particular, as well as the biggest changes she's seen within the Japanese market over her 15-year-plus career and the big risks and opportunities looking ahead.

00:00 Introduction

01:15 Background to becoming a portfolio manager and analyst

03:22 The biggest change seen within Japanese markets

04:55 The impact of corporate governance improvements

05:31 An explanation of cross-shareholdings

08:39 The impact of the return of inflation on markets and companies

11:56 The impact of rising interest rates and real wage growth on companies

14:21 Have corporate governance reforms impacted CCJI's investable universe?

15:36 How CCJI balances the need to provide income as well as capital growth

16:38 How will US tariffs affect Japan?

18:52 On which sectors in Japan are you the most bullish?

20:09 The biggest risks for investors in 2025 and beyond