Nicola Takada Wood joins RWC Nissay Japan Stewardship Team

RWC Partners confirms that it has appointed Nicola Takada Wood as Portfolio Advisor for its Japanese Stewardship strategy, managed with long-term joint venture partner Tokyo-based Nissay Asset Management (NAM). Takada Wood brings over 14 years of experience in Japanese corporate markets and will join the team’s London-based senior portfolio advisors.
Takada Wood was most recently at Mizuho Securities where she was an Executive Director, responsible for Japanese and Asian equity sales to institutional investors. Prior to this she spent seven years at Goldman Sachs in both London and Tokyo, where she focused on advisory and execution of Japanese equity products.
The team applies a constructive activist approach to the Japanese equity market, centered on shareholder engagement, and has generated top decile performance over the last three, five and ten years and since its inception in 2005. Responding to investor demand, a UCITS-compliant version of the strategy, the RWC Nissay Japan Focus Fund, was launched in 2015 which has since outperformed the benchmark by 26%[1].
Dan Mannix, CEO, RWC Partners, said:
“Nicola’s appointment reflects a persistent interest from our clients in Japanese investing.
“The rules of the Japanese stock market have undergone radical changes in recent years; shareholder engagement strategies were essentially untried in Japan 15 years ago. Our team has developed its investment approach and, crucially, built relationships with corporate managers over this time. This allows us to engage with companies at a fundamental level, an ability which is enhanced by the many decades of trust Nissay Asset Management has engendered as a respected member of the Japanese corporate community.
“We believe that opportunities to generate differentiated outperformance still abound in this market, and more importantly, that we have a team with the right experience and skill set to take advantage of these opportunities.”
[1] The RWC Nissay Japan Focus Fund returned 44.81%, net of fees, from 30 March 2015 – 31 August 2018. The TOPIX TR Index returned 18.98% over the same period.