As an independent multi-boutique asset management firm, we are committed to working together with investors.
In today's maturing economy in Japan, unlike during the past decades of economic expansion, the trend toward “asset management from fundraising” and “shifting from savings to investment” is gaining ground. As such, asset management companies have come to play a more meaningful role in Japan’s financial scene. However, we are afraid that the evolution of the asset management industry in this country is still far behind that of Europe and the United States, particularly in developing professional talents and creating high-quality investment products.
This is attributed to Japan's unique financial history where banks and securities firms dominated and functioned as fundraising arms. At the same time, asset management did not have a major role and thus was neglected during the post-WWII reconstruction period.
With the Japanese government now actively implementing initiatives to progress the country’s asset management industry, finally, has a spotlight where we gradually recognize its highest growth potential in the financial sector. In these government initiatives, “fiduciary duty” has come under scrutiny from the perspective of putting the customer first. Also, an increased focus started to take place on separating the creation and distribution of investment products. In other words, the focus is on the independent governance of asset management companies that produce investment products, from affiliated distributors such as banks and securities firms who do marketing and sales. As a background, in the long run historically, the Japanese asset management industry has been dominated by asset managers with full product lines (aka department store type) who are affiliated with and controlled by major financial conglomerates. On the other hand, very few independent asset managers without influential parent shareholders have existed compared to the U.S. industry.
<Market Share of Independent Asset Management Companies in Japan and US>
Source: The Investment Trusts Association, ADV Rating, As of Dec 2023
Since our founding in 1998, Bayview Asset Management (BVAM) has committed to creating a new tidal wave toward independent and boutique asset management firms with a small number of elite professionals, to persistently deliver the highest level of asset management services to our investors. Thankfully, we are now honored to receive strong support from institutional investors such as pension funds and individual investors. We have steadily grown to become one of the leading independent boutique houses in Japan with assets under management exceeding 1 trillion yen.
Based on our long-term management vision, we began hiring new graduates in 2011, and have taken a major step forward to achieve not only “management independence” but also “human resource independence” by training employees who have joined us as a fresh graduate. In addition, we have further strengthened our governance, information management, and compliance systems by obtaining an assurance report on internal control over discretionary investment operations since FY2012 and Information Security Management System (ISMS) certification every year since FY2019. We have been building up a solid operational platform for the future.
Finally, as a new and exciting chapter in BVAM’s history, we launched our first “mutual fund offered directly to individual investors online” in April 2025. This latest project has been one of our main objectives since we founded the business. We will market our own manufactured mutual funds directly to individual investors without any 3rd party distributors, such as banks or securities firms. We strongly believe this will foster innovation and growth across the industry.
We continue to aim for the first full-fledged independent and multi-boutique asset management firm in Japan. We offer investment products managed by ourselves, in addition to our excellent overseas investment partners. At the same time, we are committed to making further efforts to “provide truly high-quality services with a face-to-face approach” by maintaining close and transparent communication with each one of our investors.
Bayview Asset Management strongly desires to open up a new era of asset management in Japan.
April 2025 Ken Yagi President and Chief Executive Officer Bayview Asset Management Co., Ltd.
