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From Benedicte Gravrand, Geneva: Jesper Koll, a Japan economy expert, joined Tantallon last month to open a new research office in Tokyo. Mr. Koll used to be the chief economist at Merrill lynch (after a stint at Tiger Management) and before that at JP Morgan securities Asia. In a telephone interview with Opalesque, he shared his convictions on Japan and disclosed Tantallon’s Japan project.

Japan has some of the best companies in the world “We think there are tremendous opportunities in the Japanese share market. Japan is home to some of the best companies in the world; it has one of the highest R&D expenditure and one of the highest pattern applications anywhere in the world. We think that a new force of global industrial as well as service sector leadership is going to be born. As a result, we want to participate in that by investing in those companies. “

How can you look at Asia excluding Japan? “Tantallon’s main fund, the Tantallon Fund, as well as the Tantallon Smaller Companies Fund, sometimes have sizeable exposure to Japan. The whole point, and this is where the opening of the research office in Tokyo comes in and where I come in, is how can you look at Asia without looking at Japan? The synergies, the competition between Japan and Asia, the wave of take-overs that we expect (of both Japanese companies buying Asian companies as well as Asian companies buyin......................

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