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One of the headaches for investors in Japanese equities is the persistent cramming of hundreds of annual shareholder meetings into a few days in late June. In recent years, the ‘peak day’ typically sees a quarter to a third of the country’s listed firms holding their AGMs.

This phenomenon has left a bad taste among asset managers and other investors who must juggle competing meetings on peak days. They view it as evidence of poor scheduling at best, or at worse, of a traditional contempt for corporate governance.

Nevertheless, meeting bottlenecks have been slowly easing since 2020, with growing awareness over the importance of governance and investor relations. This week’s Chart Room looks at the long-term trend of Japanese AGMs being held on the busiest day.

The ratio of peak-day AGMs this year has dropped to 25.8 per cent (of more than 2,100 firms ending their fiscal year in March), the lowest in four decades and down from 26 per cent in 2022. On June 29, at least 562 companies are scheduled to hold their meetings. Although companies whose fiscal year ends in March can have AGMs on any day in the second quarter, most choose to wait till the final week. For example, more than 60 per cent of such firms will hold AGMs in the last five days of June this year.

As Japan pushes ahead with reforms for its stock market, there are many areas where it can look to boost investor confidence. The ‘June jam’ of shareholder meetings seems an obvious place to start.

Tomohiro Ikawa

Tomohiro Ikawa

Yi Hu

Yi Hu

Investment Writer