Charts the rise and fall of confrontational hedge fund activism in Japan.

List of figures; List of tables; Acknowledgements; Note on transcriptions of Japanese names; 1. Introduction: hedge fund activism, Japanese corporate governance, and the nature of the company; 2. Companies, company law, and corporate governance; 3. The rise of shareholder primacy in America and Britain; 4. The emergence of activist hedge funds; 5. Firm-centric corporate governance: the evolution of the Japanese model; 6. Japan's unexpected credentials as a target for hedge fund activism; 7. The anatomy of hedge fund activism: funds, targets and outcomes; 8. Two turning points: Bull-Dog Sauce and J-Power; 9. Responding to activism: managers, investors, officials and the media; 10. 'Quiet activism': the future for shareholder engagement in Japan?; 11. Conclusion: after shareholder primacy; Methodological appendix; Bibliography.

John Buchanan is a research associate at the Centre for Business Research, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. His first degree was in oriental studies and subsequently he worked as a commercial banker in Brazil, Japan and Spain, and then as an investment banker in the UK and Japan, at both British and Japanese banks. He has been studying Japanese corporate governance since 2002.