Success Stories

Thank you. We are happy to be registered to offer our services to Japanese investors.
In 2022, P/E Global LLC (“P/E”) established PE Investments Japan GK (“PE Japan”) as a wholly owned subsidiary. Three partners launched P/E Investments in 1995 from a barn in Weston, Massachusetts. From that modest beginning, we have grown to serve investors around the world. P/E is registered as an investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and as a commodity trading advisor and commodity pool operator with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
P/E’s mission is to provide efficient, tailored solutions for institutional and qualified investors. We work to achieve these goals using a fundamentally-based, systematic approach to investing, across asset classes, on a global basis. Our team of professionals offers extensive experience in portfolio management, asset allocation, market analysis, and risk management. We believe that effective diversification, thorough analysis, and consistent risk management lead to superior investment performance. In fact, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of our FX Strategy as of October 1st 2023.
While P/E’s head office is based in Boston, we are a global manager with long standing presence in Singapore and Australia. More recently, we established an office in the UK, and now, Japan.

Our investor base is global in nature, but primarily domiciled in English speaking countries. Since P/E’s strategies offer diversifying sources of alpha, we believe that we can provide opportunities to Japanese institutional investors. We also believe that our investment process differentiates us from our competitors.
We have established strong relationships with global investment consultants. We have expanded our presence in Singapore to include trading and operations staff, working round the clock with our Boston-based trading and operations teams. Now, we are looking to build upon that base by expanding our international team. We formed PE Japan to apply for a license to introduce Japanese institutional investors to our investment strategies and services.
As for the timing of the submission of the application, we were impressed with Japan’s stated commitment to work with foreign businesses. The establishment of the Financial Market Entry Office in 2021 to process applications in English was a key incentive for us to begin this process.

P/E is committed to serving institutional investors in Japan. The establishment of PE Japan demonstrates this commitment. P/E works closely with each investor to tailor solutions that address the investor’s specific needs and challenges. In order to provide these services, we need Japanese professionals who can speak directly with Japanese investors, as well as coordinate with P/E staff in Boston. This model has worked for us in other jurisdictions, such as Singapore, Australia, and the UK. We are excited to begin this new chapter in Japan, and hope to offer solutions tailored to Japanese investors

We greatly appreciate that the entire process was conducted in English. This allowed us to communicate efficiently with the regulators and with our counsel. We also appreciate that we are allowed to write PE Japan’s compliance policies in English and that future regulatory communications will be made in English. This allows us to leverage our existing global compliance framework, with additional insight and support from our Compliance Officer in Japan.

I have submitted new license registrations in other jurisdictions; however, this was my first time working in a non-English speaking country. I was pleased to discover that in 2021, JFSA launched an all-in-English license application process. FMEO’s questions, written in English, were clear enough to deepen our understanding of the requirements for the license registration. Further, we had the opportunity to speak with JFSA staff and greatly appreciated their verbal fluency. Finally, all email communications between FMEO and P/E were copied to our external legal counsels making it easier for us to consult with them as necessary.

The FMEO officers with whom we interacted were very professional, knowledgeable, and supportive throughout the entire registration process. For example, in the initial registration meeting, they informed us that both the JIAA membership application and rules were available in English. This enabled us to incorporate JIAA rules into PE Japan’s policies and procedures more efficiently. We also believe it helped us to complete the JIAA admission process following our license registration more smoothly.

In the past two years, I have attended several seminars hosted by Tricor featuring the Financial Start-up Support Program. Those seminars were very informative and lead me to recommend them to P/E. I appreciate that the seminars are open to questions from attendees and that they also address regulatory initiatives.

https://www.fsa.go.jp/internationalfinancialcenter/en/our-support/materials/events/

We applied for the JFSA’s Financial Start-up Program and obtained subsidies for certain expenses incurred during business startup and license registration. Tricor Japan coordinated the reimbursement process which was very straightforward.

We see many applications of our strategies in client portfolios. For example, we believe that we can assist Japanese institutional investors to better manage currency risk and reduce hedging costs. In addition, in this increasingly volatile market environment, we believe that our products can provide diversification to standard portfolios.

P/E’s core values, integrity, leadership, teamwork, and commitment, define our corporate culture. We are proud that many of our leaders joined the firm following their college studies and have devoted their careers to our corporate vision. We believe in education and innovation. For example, we leverage Boston’s strong academic infrastructure, supporting graduate studies after two years of full-time employment. We believe that our values, and our commitment to people, will resonate with our Japanese staff, and with Japanese investors. We look forward to growing PE Japan in this vision.

We are excited to engage with Japanese institutional investors in discussing potential opportunities and how P/E may assist. PE Japan plans to work with local asset managers, trust banks and certain financial institutions to offer insights and to develop strategies to meet their needs. Japanese investors have been grappling with low interest rates for decades and accordingly their foreign assets have increased significantly over the years. Currency management is critical to Japanese investors, particularly in this new investment regime. Equally important, currency can provide uncorrelated alpha with other asset classes, bringing a diversified source of alpha to an investor’s portfolio. As Warren noted, P/E believes that by utilizing a fundamental systematic approach to investing, currency risk can be appropriately managed and can also generate alpha.

After I joined P/E in June 2023, I travelled to Boston for two months of training. During my time in the Boston office, I realized that P/E is truly a flat organization, with the team caring for their new colleagues, and the senior management devoted to nurturing employees’ health, welfare, and interests. Further, the office was tidy. Chairs and desks were always clean with no coffee or cookie crumbs on the desk demonstrating discipline akin to Japanese culture. P/E endeavors to instill a global culture, reflecting its core values of integrity, leadership, teamwork and commitment. As part of the global P/E team, I will work to provide superior customer service to our Japanese institutional investor base.

I am grateful to find that P/E has built a global compliance framework and is respectful and mindful of compliance in its decision-making processes. I am looking forward to working with the P/E Global compliance team and, with the thoughtful guidance and support from FMEO, to oversee our continued growth in Japan.