Catching up at last

Japan’s alternative investment market is undergoing a structural transformation, decades in the making

For years, Japan remained a conspicuous outlier in global alternative investing. With only around 5% of portfolios allocated to alternative assets, it lagged far behind the United States and Britain, where allocations hover near 25%. According to Kazuya Nagasawa, president and chief executive of Tokio Marine Asset Management, this gap was not incidental. It was structural.