Junichi Inoue has guided foreign investors into Japan for most of the past three decades. A native of Fukuoka, the largest city on the southern island of Kyushu, he managed money first at Mercury Asset Management, the London-based shop that Merrill Lynch acquired in 1997. Now head of Japanese equities at Janus Henderson Investors, the $457 billion investment manager, Inoue oversees $205 million in three European-domiciled vehicles, including an exchange-traded fund that was started in October 2024. The €7 million ($8.3 million) Janus Henderson Tabula Japan High Conviction Equity UCITS ETF, which trades on Xetra in Frankfurt, returned 7.5% this year through Sept. 10, 1 percentage point ahead of the MSCI Japan Net Return Index. His conversation with Investing & FFM Editor Jon Asmundsson in late August has been edited for clarity and length.
JON ASMUNDSSON : Why should global investors allocate to Japanese stocks now?