Polymer Capital's Daisuke Nakayama Says This Japanese Financial Conglomerate Should Be Valued Like A Global Investment Platform

At Sohn Tokyo 2026, Polymer Capital portfolio manager Daisuke Nakayama argued that investors frame one large Japanese financial group as a collection of assets spanning leasing, insurance, real estate, airports and renewable energy. He contended that this view is about to change, as the company positions itself as an investment platform that attracts outside capital and earns recurring fees. In his view, the market will eventually value the company alongside global alternative asset managers rather than as a conventional conglomerate. Nakayama delivered his remarks in Japanese; the quotes reported by Hedge Fund Alpha are translated.

Nakayama described himself as a long-only, active Japan equity manager with more than 30 years of experience through difficult periods for Japanese stocks. He said Polymer is at heart a hedge fund and that he has run its long-only fund as an in-house venture for the past three years. His career includes roles as an analyst at Nippon Life from 1993, portfolio manager from 1998, and a move to JP Morgan Fleming Asset Management in 2005. The following year he took over the flagship retail fund JF The Japan, which he managed for eighteen years, earning awards from Lipper Japan, Morningstar Japan and R&I.

According to Reuters, Polymer was founded in 2019 by Angus Wai, formerly of Point72's Asia operations, and is backed by alternative investment firm PAG. Reuters describes it as having grown quickly into one of Asia's largest hedge fund platforms, using multiple trading teams across asset classes. Publisher coverage of Polymer's Japan strategy notes that Nakayama's portfolio has delivered returns exceeding 20% above the TOPIX benchmark since he joined the firm in September 2023.

Nakayama said he is less focused on next year's results than on how a company earns money, how the market values it, and whether that structure is changing. He looks for inflection points, the moment a company or stock bottoms out and begins to rise, using long-term forces such as geopolitics and national security, macro factors such as interest rates, industry shifts, and company-specific change. He also argued that picking individual stocks in a volatile market is difficult.