TOKYO -- On the last day of February, Charles Wang's students at Harvard Business School in Boston were given a rare opportunity: A chance to talk strategy with the CEO of Misaki Capital, the Tokyo activist investment fund that provided the day's case study.
The topic was Misaki's investment in Sangetsu, a Nagoya-based company trading in interior design materials and furnishings. Misaki uses its weight as a shareholder to push management toward reform -- an approach learned from U.S. activist funds. So what could students at this citadel of American capitalism learn from Japan?