Asset Value Investors Limited, the London fund run by chief executive Joe Bauernfreund, has raised its stake in Wacom Co.,Ltd. (TSE: 6727) to 19.16% from 18.11%, according to a change report filed with Japan's Kanto Local Finance Bureau on September 24. The filing states that the reporting obligation, triggered by the one-percentage-point threshold crossing, arose on September 14. It is the seventeenth such change report AVI has filed on Wacom, a pattern that points to a sustained position rather than a single trade.
A specific number, not a wish list
Buried in the filing's boilerplate about possible "important proposals" is one concrete request: AVI says it has already proposed that Wacom set a dividend payout ratio target of 65%. That is a demand already made, distinct from the longer list of actions the filing says AVI merely reserves the right to pursue if it judges them necessary for lifting Wacom's corporate value. That reserved list includes disposing of or acquiring significant assets, replacing the representative director, changing the composition of the board, transferring part or all of the business, and revising capital policy more broadly. The filing is explicit that the details, timing and conditions of any of those broader steps remain undecided. The filing records only AVI's request; it does not show any response from Wacom accepting or rejecting the target.
How the position was built
AVI's holding now stands at 25,861,950 shares, out of 135,000,000 shares outstanding as of June 30. The filing categorizes all ¥19.6bn of acquisition funding as "other," sourced from the fund's own money, with no borrowings recorded separately. Trading records attached to the report show near-daily buying between July 21 and September 14, split between on-market purchases and off-market trades, with off-market prices ranging from ¥742 to ¥854 a share over that stretch.
What is settled and what is not
The filing establishes two things clearly: AVI's stake has grown past 19%, and it has put a specific payout number in front of Wacom's management. Everything else in the document, the possible board changes, asset moves or business transfers, is framed as a contingency AVI could invoke later, not a step it has taken. Of the specific proposals the filing lists, the dividend target is the only one AVI says it has already made to Wacom.