Success Stories

Pinecone was established to invest in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Japan.

Our way of investing in SMEs is quite different to the traditional private equity model which we felt was too aggressive and short-term focused for the Japanese SME market which typically meant a 3 to 5 years investment horizon before needing to re-sell the company for a profit.

We arrived at this model after searching across the world for a way that was more compatible with Japanese business norms and cultural values. Our search led us to an evergreen investment holding model applied by a group of highly successful companies known as the "Swedish Serial Acquirers".

We want to be the first to bring this model to Japan.

Andrew and Shu, the two General Partners of Pinecone, met socially a few years ago, and despite coming from very different professional backgrounds, they quickly bonded over a shared passion for investing and business. Towards the end of 2022, they joined forces upon identifying a fast growing demand among Japanese family-owned companies for business succession solutions.

Shu had personally experienced the difficulties of business succession in Japan when his family faced the unexpected forced generational transition of their auto dealership in Shizuoka. This informed him of the need for a better solution, and also presented an opportunity to leverage his business experience and operational skills.

Andrew’s professional background had been in asset management both internationally and here in Japan across both the private and public equity spaces.

Given Andrew was a professional investor himself, having focused on finding high quality Japanese companies over the past few years, he saw an opportunity to apply his experience in SME investing on a much larger scale within the Japanese SME landscape and this was the genesis of Pinecone.

We were delighted to be the first company to successfully commence operation through the new pathway provided by the SPBFI notification process.

We felt the notification process strikes a good balance between upholding the integrity of the financial system while at the same time expediting the launch timeframe for a new firm like ours..

We were grateful for the guidance and support provided by the team at the Financial Market Entry Office. Throughout the process, they worked collaboratively with us to ensure that the expectations and goal posts were clear. We were pleasantly surprised to have consistently received detailed feedback within one to two days of each draft submission.

We felt privileged to have been accepted into the Financial Start-up Support Program. The support from JFSA and Tricor Japan ensured that distractions from the necessary but time-consuming business establishment tasks were kept to a minimum. Of course, there were always minor challenges, but they did not worry us as we knew that both the Financial Market Entry Office and Tricor Japan were behind us.

This allowed us to focus and direct our precious resources towards fulfilling our business objectives. As a result, we were able to accelerate our timeline by many months. The rebate of costs associated with the entry is also helpful for emerging investment managers like us.

Our vision is for Pinecone to be recognized as a pioneer on the Japanese investment landscape by bringing this evergreen investment holding model to the SME space in Japan.

We want to prove that a different investment approach is possible and in turn inspire others to follow in our footsteps.

We wanted a name that conveys our overarching investment philosophy which places an emphasis on long-term value creation. Pine trees have long been regarded in Japan as evergreen symbols of endurance and eternity.

Specifically, the function of a pinecone is to safeguard a pine tree's seeds from harsh weather conditions, wind, and animals. Once favorable conditions arise, pinecones release their seeds to enable them to grow and thrive. This Pinecone, accurately describes our attitude and approach towards our portfolio companies.