Upheaval can create opportunity. Baillie Gifford’s Japan Team seeks out companies that will derive the greatest long-term benefit from transformational forces impacting business and broader society. In this podcast, investment manager Matthew Brett identifies four ‘structural growth’ drivers and the portfolio companies taking advantage of them.

Background:

Matthew Brett is the investment manager of The Baillie Gifford Japan Trust and our Japanese Fund, as well as co-manager of the Japanese Income Growth Fund. In this episode of Short Briefings on Long Term Thinking he discusses four forces creating long-term growth opportunities:

- Japan’s late embrace of digitalisation

- the rising spending power of its Asian neighbours

- the accelerated adoption of industrial automation

- the unmet health needs of an ageing population

Brett also names some of the Japanese companies driving these changes or otherwise gaining advantage, including ecommerce conglomerate Rakuten, skincare beauty firm Shiseido, machine vision specialist Keyence and Alzheimer’s drug developer Eisai.

Resources:

Japan: the next opportunity

Kohei Saito: Slow Down – How Degrowth Communism Can Save The Earth

Companies mentioned include: