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Birth of a Hidden Champion Issue 4: Keyence &
Takemitsu, Nitori & AkioDear Clients and Partners,
BirthofaHiddenChampion(Issue4):Keyence&Takemitsu,Nitori &Akio
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Welcome to the fourth issue of the “Birth of a Hidden Champion” tribute series, where wehighlight inspirational stories on the listing birth of Hidden Champions creating and compoundingvalue in the Asian capital markets.
On the 6th of January 1992, two Hidden Champions were born in the Japanese capital market.Keyence (TSE:6861), led by the quiet and low-profile founder Takemitsu Takizaki, went on tocompound nearly 2100% to a market value of over US$70 billion today; and Nitori, led by thefarsighted and passionate Akio Nitori, to go on and compound over 5,000% to a market value ofover US$16 billion today.
These extraordinary Hidden Champions have pushed us to delve deeper into the inner workingsof what make Hidden Champions stood the test of times. We had mapped out a selected group ofAsian entrepreneurs whom we monitored over the decade plus and have admire and respectthem, including Keyence. Since we wrote about the learning insights of Keyence’s innovativebusiness model in the TODAY newspaper article back in April 2013, it had quadrupled in marketvalue. In the inaugural Intervarsity Stock Research Challenge held during the annual ValueInvesting Summit 2017 in January 2017, the eventual champions from NTU impressed the judgesand audience with their research on Keyence, which went on to nearly double a year later. Youcan read more about their research here: Intervarsity Stock Challenge Booklet 2017.
By investigating deeper into understanding the owner-operators’ higher Purpose to add value tosociety by solving high-value problems and serving underserved customers with their uniqueproducts and services, you would be able to invest with a higher conviction and be rooted ininvestment resilience even and especially in fragile and weak market conditions. We dug deep tocraft up-close-and-personal insights to why Akio Nitori started his business, whose Purpose hascarried on till today with the mission of improving the quality of life Japanese are able to enjoywith affordable yet stylish furniture. You can find our series on the owner-operators building ourHidden Champions called “Inside the Leaders Mind” here: Inside the Leader’s Mind: Akio Nitori.
Please check out our website www.hiddenchampionsfund.com which includes a section of“Business Builders of Asian Hidden Champions – Invisible Heroes in our Lives” and let us know([email protected]) who else do you admire in Asia and would like us to includein the “Heroes in our Lives”, as well as share with us which Asian entrepreneurs do you like most.
Warm regards,KEE Koon Boon | Chief Investment Officer & CEOHidden Champions Fundwww.hiddenchampionsfund.com
KEEKoonBoon, ChiefInvestmentOfficer&CEO
JoshuaZHANG,InvestmentManager
JoycePANG,InvestmentAnalyst
THOJinliang,BusinessDevelopmentAnalyst
