Book Title: Board-Shareholder Dialogue: Policy Debate, Legal Constraints and Best Practices

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Abstract: This Chapter critically examines shareholder engagement in China, Japan and South Korea, with a specific focus on hedge fund activists. It shows that hedge funds in these East Asian countries pursue similar objectives and adopt similar strategies as their counterparts in the UK and the US. It also finds that hedge fund activism is on a growing trajectory in these countries in recent five years, especially in Japan and South Korea. Nevertheless, there are distinct differences in the patterns of hedge fund engagements within the three countries. In particular, the frequency of activism in China is much lower than Japan and Korea over the years, due to the controlled entry of foreign hedge funds in China and its government-centered approach towards corporate governance.