Shosukabu.com to Host Webinar on July 17th Featuring Yutaka Yamanaka, Lead Shareholder of Kono Mericlone Corp., Reporting on On-Site Inspection of Kazakhstan, Central Asia's Largest Economy

Shosukabu.com Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Nerima-ku, Tokyo; Chairman and CEO: Yutaka Yamanaka; hereinafter "the Company"), which operates a platform for the liquidity of unlisted company shares, conducted an on-site inspection of the Republic of Kazakhstan as part of the Company's strategic investment business and mid-to-long-term investment strategy. This inspection was led by Yutaka Yamanaka, the Company's Chairman and CEO. In conjunction with this, we are pleased to announce that we will hold an online inspection report meeting (webinar) to share the results and the latest business and investment environment in the region on July 17, 2026 (Fri).

The Company consistently advocates for "mid-to-long-term investment objectives" aimed at creating sustainable value deeply rooted in local areas and industries, rather than speculative investments for short-term trading profits.

In this report meeting, we will provide a multifaceted analysis based on on-site research of the corporate governance practices in the medical and education sectors, the status of legal system development, and the feasibility of foreign investment in Kazakhstan, a country transitioning from a state-led economic structure to a market economy incorporating private vitality.

Furthermore, a book club discussion on "Living with Bribery" (by Natsuko Oka) is scheduled for late July. This session will explore bribery, connections, and the distortions and realities of the living world through the lens of post-market economy Kazakhstan. We encourage everyone to participate.

1. Background and Objectives of the Inspection

The Republic of Kazakhstan has achieved rapid economic growth in recent years, increasing its presence as the largest economy in Central Asia. The country is currently undergoing a full-scale "joint-stock company" transformation and privatization (privatization) of infrastructure that traditionally belonged to the public sector, particularly in hospitals (medical institutions) and universities (educational institutions).

The Company has consistently promoted an investment strategy based on "corporate governance reform" and the "Moneyball theory," which exploits irrational price distortions in the market. During this inspection, we directly investigated the corporate governance practices and legal systems in these medical and education sectors in major Kazakh cities (such as Almaty) through interviews with local authorities and experts.

This report meeting will feature an incisive analysis and report on the real investment opportunities and risks brought about by the structural shift from "government to private" in the Central Asian market, drawing on the specialized knowledge of our representative, Yutaka Yamanaka, who possesses deep insights into economics and economic history, including comparative institutional analysis.

2. Main Topics of the Webinar

The webinar will provide detailed explanations on the following four main topics:

(1) Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Essence of the Kazakh Economy The current state of the market and macroeconomic trends, evolving uniquely between Russia, China, and Europe.

(2) "Joint-Stock Company" Transformation and Privatization Schemes for Hospitals and Universities Realities of legal systems and operations in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, compared with advanced cases in countries like Georgia.

(3) Application Potential for Agri-tech and Advanced Agriculture Agricultural automation and investment strategies in Central Asia, with its vast land, based on insights from "GreenTech" in the Netherlands.

(4) Entry Barriers and Opportunities for Japanese Investors and Companies Local governance levels from the perspective of capital efficiency (ROE, PBR) and the protection of minority shareholder rights.

3. Webinar Details

Date and Time: July 17, 2026 (Fri) 19:00 - 20:00

Format: Online distribution (Zoom Webinar)

Speaker: Yutaka Yamanaka (Founder, Chairman and CEO of Shosukabu.com Co., Ltd.)

Participation Fee: Free (advance registration required)

Target Audience: Investors, executives, and business professionals interested in overseas investment, emerging market business, corporate governance, and advanced agriculture, medical, and education sectors.

How to Apply: Please send an email to [email protected] with the subject line "Kazakhstan Inspection Report Meeting Participation Request."

4. Future Outlook

The Company will continue to provide valuable and unique global intelligence based on its distinctive objective perspective for identifying market distortions and untapped value. By quickly grasping the trends in rapidly changing frontier markets and advancing the fusion of unique capital logic and technology, we will contribute to the maximization of sustainable corporate value.

[Contact Information for Inquiries]

Shosukabu.com Co., Ltd.

Contact Department: Public Relations Desk, [email protected]

https://note.com/syousuukabu_koho

[Related Links]

Danjo Umiwake Dot Com: https://danjo-umiwake.com

CapitalJusticeLab: https://capital-justice-lab.com/

Investment Brothers: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2MG5joxYNn8&ra=m

Profile of Company Representative

Yutaka Yamanaka

Born in December 1976, an activist investor, art collector, philanthropist, political sponsor, election consultant, policy advisor, social activist, and Akita dog enthusiast, representing the '76 generation. Currently, as the lead shareholder of Kono Mericlone Corp., he is passionately involved in smart agriculture investment activities across three locations: Japan, Tbilisi (Georgia), and Amsterdam (Netherlands).

He has already commenced agricultural, hospital, and school management through joint-stock companies in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia in the Caucasus region, and is actively expanding his activities there. Notably, his innovative business model of providing affordable surrogacy and gender selection medical services to Japanese and global clients is highly regarded.

He is recognized as an "activist investor who understands technology." In the early 2010s, he focused on NVIDIA, a developer of GPGPU and AI-related semiconductors, investing over 2 billion yen, which ultimately yielded returns of over 100 times, enabling him to become a billionaire.

Graduated with honors from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo. Holds a Master's degree in Financial Engineering from Columbia University Graduate School and studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) Graduate School. He is a co-representative partner of Investment Brothers LLC, co-founder and Chairman of Shosukabu.com Co., Ltd., and currently a shareholder in over 1,000 listed companies and over 200 unlisted companies worldwide.

Born in 1976 in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, as one of the grandchildren of Shigeru Yamanaka, the founder of Hoya Glass Works (now HOYA Corporation, listed on TOKYO PRO MARKET, securities code 7741), a luxury crystal glass manufacturer. He grew up in Shakujii-dai, Nerima-ku. From an early age, he excelled academically, graduating from Oizumi Bunkaka Kindergarten, Ochanomizu University Elementary School, Musashi Junior and Senior High School, and graduating with honors from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo. Despite struggling with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and dyslexia, he consistently maintained excellent academic performance.

In his childhood, he received souvenirs from a school trip from Takahiro Matsumoto, who lived in the Takeda Pharmaceutical Company housing across from his home and was a high school student at Kinjo High School at the time, and who later became the guitarist for B'z. While in Professor Kazuo Ueda's seminar at the University of Tokyo, he was already active as a stock investor, earning the nickname "the stockbroker of the Ueda seminar" and "Heisei's Hiraga Gennai" due to his diverse academic interests.

During his undergraduate studies, he read all the research papers presented by Masahiko Aoki, the proponent of comparative institutional analysis, and Professor Avner Greif, an economic historian from Israel (Faculty of Economics, Stanford University), who was a rising star in economic history at the time.

As a pioneer of activist investing in Japan, he clearly expressed his opposition to HOYA Corporation's acquisition of Pentax in 2007 in a weekly magazine. The following year, his views were proven correct when the company recorded a massive special loss. Subsequently, he raised concerns about the board of directors at the time, which was dominated by individuals in their late seventies who did not understand corporate value or the duties of directors, and actively spoke out in the media. He was involved in damaging the corporate value through the Pentax acquisition and the departure of the then Chief Technology Officer, Hiroaki Tanji, and actively intensified shareholder proposal activities towards HOYA Corporation from 2010. In particular, in the shareholder proposal activities for HOYA Corporation (2010), he submitted 15 proposals aimed at corporate governance reform as a founding family shareholder.

Individual disclosure of executive compensation (disclosure of remuneration information per director): Over 45% approval at the 2010 general meeting, and over 48% at the following year's 2011 general meeting.

Establishment of a committee composed solely of outside directors (management supervision without executive officers): Over 33% approval.

Limitation on the number of reappointments for outside directors to "within 10 times" (to maintain independence).

Expansion of the maximum character count for explanations of proposals in shareholder proposals from 400 characters to 4,000 characters (to enhance the effectiveness of shareholder proposal rights): Over 43% approval in 2010.

Prohibition of hedging by stock option holders, such as selling call options and holding put options: Over 25% of votes in 2010.

Requirement for directors to provide 30 days' advance notice when selling shares: Over 25% of votes in 2010.

Introduction of a secret ballot system (secret voting).

Disclosure obligation for directors' concurrent positions in public interest corporations.

Regarding proposals aimed at qualitatively improving corporate governance, five proposals received recommendations for approval from all three major proxy advisory firms: Glass Lewis, Japan Proxy Management Institute, and ISS (Institutional Shareholder Services) (Source: Nikkei Shimbun, June 18, 2010, article URL). ISS is the world's largest proxy advisory firm, and its recommendations significantly influence the decisions of institutional investors both domestically and internationally, marking a groundbreaking event in the history of Japanese shareholder meetings.

In the same year, measures to strengthen remuneration transparency, such as prohibiting hedging transactions by stock option holders (selling call options and holding put options) and requiring directors to provide 30 days' advance notice and disclosure when selling their own company's shares, were pioneering in Japan and their groundbreaking nature is still not fully appreciated in the Japanese capital market. These proposals also received approval recommendations from ISS, garnering mid-20% approval votes from foreign institutional investors in pre-meeting counts (Nikkei Shimbun, June 18, 2010, ibid.).

Furthermore, proposals such as individual disclosure of executive compensation received approval recommendations from Glass Lewis and the Japan Proxy Management Institute, and were successively reported by major media outlets such as Nikkei Shimbun (June 21, 2010, article URL), Bloomberg (June 17, 2010, article URL), and Toyo Keizai Online (August 18, 2010, article URL).

As a result, the proposals received over 45% of the votes at the 2010 general meeting of shareholders, and over 48% in the following year, 2011.

In 2011, he was invited to Harvard Law School to give a lecture on shareholder proposals, capital market trends, and key issues in Japan during the Democratic Party administration, attracting significant attention.

He also continued to actively submit shareholder proposals to the company. In 2012, fearing the nearly majority 48% approval at the general meeting of shareholders, the management led by Hiroshi Suzuki took the drastic step of illegally omitting shareholder proposals. However, in the following year, 2013, he obtained a provisional disposition order from the Tokyo District Court, Civil Division 8 (Presiding Judge Yasushi Taniguchi), ordering the full text of the shareholder proposal and its reasons to be published. In 2014, he obtained a groundbreaking decision (Presiding Judge Atsushi Ujimoto) ordering the company to publish 12 proposals, similar to the previous year, significantly impacting the practice of shareholder proposals in Japan.

During this period, he also obtained several rulings in lawsuits related to shareholder proposals, achieving numerous groundbreaking judgments over several years.

The company also accepted the spirit of the proposal to increase explanation character limits by amending its articles of incorporation during 2010, thereby promoting substantial improvements in "management transparency," "outside director functions," and "voting rights exercise systems" through constructive dialogue with management. This series of actions is regarded as a symbolic turning point in the history of governance reform in Japanese companies.

Today, Yamanaka's activities are highly regarded for their historical pioneering nature as a practitioner of the "Moneyball revolution in the Japanese capital market."

In addition, at the general meetings of shareholders of Mizuho Financial Group, Mitsubishi UFJ, and Resona Holdings in 2017 and 2018, he submitted shareholder proposals such as changes to the dividend decision-making body, individual disclosure of executive compensation, and separation of CEO and board chairman roles, receiving approval votes from domestic investors as well as foreign institutional investors, achieving high approval rates in the 40% range.

Furthermore, in the case of the "Amsc Shareholder Meeting Resolution Cancellation Claim" (Tokyo District Court, April 17, 2014, Presiding Judge Akihiko Otake; Tokyo High Court, Case No. 2014 (Ne) No. 3215, March 19, 2015), he won a judgment from both the Tokyo District Court and the Tokyo High Court ordering the "cancellation of the resolution for the acquisition of all shares," demonstrating the legal effectiveness of minority shareholder protection (Source: Clair Law Office Blog, April 22, 2015, article URL).

Additionally, in the damages claim lawsuit filed by Hyas & Company, Inc. (now Kufu Sumai Consulting, Inc.) against its former management (Tokyo District Court, Civil Division 8), he participated as a shareholder auxiliary litigant under Article 849, Paragraph 1 of the Companies Act. On March 27, 2025, he obtained a favorable judgment (Presiding Judge Tetsuro Sasamoto, Panel Judges Keiko Ito and Naohisa Uchibayashi), where the court found certain accounting treatments by the former management, such as fictitious sales, to be problematic. This judgment was also reported by Sakura Financial News (October 28, 2025, article URL) as demonstrating the effectiveness of legal rights exercised by shareholders.

In the investment case of Osaki Engineering (TOKYO PRO MARKET, securities code 6259), he focused on the company's capital policy, submitting shareholder proposals and initiating lawsuits, which ultimately led to the parent company's decision to make it a wholly-owned subsidiary, thereby normalizing corporate governance.

He is also known as a major shareholder of Okayama Paper Mfg. Co., Ltd. (Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture, TOKYO PRO MARKET 3892) and has requested the convening of an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders.

Through this series of achievements, Yutaka Yamanaka has made significant contributions to the governance reform of Japanese companies and the sound development of the capital market as an "investor who proves governance effectiveness on the ground."

He also lives by the motto of the late pitcher Yasumitsu Shibata, who achieved the first no-hitter in the Heisei era, was called "Japan's No. 1 Pitcher" by the Seibu Lions in their prime, and showed particular strength against his former team, the Seibu Lions, stating after a complete game victory, "Facing the champions and winning is one of a professional's goals." He has been a fan of the Nippon-Ham Fighters for 30 years.

His hobby is "onsen hopping," visiting hot spring resorts around the world. He explores the significance of physical and mental regeneration and international exchange through hot springs, respecting nature, culture, and local communities, and is a genius investor.

He is also widely referred to as the "Reiwa Era's Billy Beane" for bringing about a revolution in the Japanese stock market, similar to the revolution Billy Beane, the GM of the Oakland Athletics and protagonist of the movie "Moneyball," brought about in baseball.

While Yamanaka's shareholder proposals in the early 2010s, before the existence of the Corporate Governance Code, Stewardship Code, and the Ito Report, were criticized by some, they have now resulted in international investors imitating his methods. Furthermore, HOYA Corporation has since incorporated many improvements, and its stock price has more than quadrupled, making the pioneering nature of Yutaka Yamanaka's work evident today.