Former Point72 Asset Management Japan head Tomohiro Yamaguchi is planning his own hedge fund to capitalise on demand from investors seeking to work with specialists in the world’s fourth-largest economy.
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Hong Kong-based Invictus Investment Partners aimed to start trading in the first quarter of 2026, pending regulatory approval, Yamaguchi said in an interview. Its hedge fund would focus on the 300 largest, most liquid Japanese stocks. An anchor investor was committing US$200 million of capital that would be locked up for two years, he added, while declining to identify the party.
Invictus is the latest start-up tapping into renewed global investor interest in Japan as corporate governance reforms gain momentum and prices rise after more than a decade of deflation. Institutions, however, have been hard pressed to find Japan-focused firms with the potential to manage sizeable amounts of money for them.
Yamaguchi will team up with Kirtes Bharti, who will serve as chief operating officer of the new firm. Invictus will also have four investment analysts.
The firm would use fundamental analysis to pick stocks, with a focus on quarterly earnings, Yamaguchi said. It planned to keep net exposure – the dollar difference between its bullish and bearish bets – below 15 per cent. The focus on the largest and most frequently traded stocks would allow it to manage larger sums of money and help control risk.
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Japan-focused hedge funds, especially those based in the country, tend to be small and run shoestring operations as a result of subdued global interest during Japan’s lost decades, together with the lack of a home-grown investor base and a focus on smaller, less liquid stocks.