Farallon Capital Management, L.L.C. disclosed a 5.02% stake in Yamato Holdings on 2 November, and the filing is more pointed than most. It names the leadership change the US investor wants: the exit of the parcel-delivery group's chairman, plus a board in which every director except the president is an outside director.
The stake
Farallon holds 18,108,700 shares, or 5.02% of the 360,496,492 shares outstanding as of 31 August 2026. The filing is a large shareholding report, which Japanese law requires once a holder crosses 5% of a listed company. The reporting obligation arose on 28 October, and the report went to the Kanto Local Finance Bureau on 2 November.
The filing's 60-day transaction table lists on-market purchases on most trading days from 31 August to 28 October, the last being 120,000 shares on 28 October. Farallon used ¥37.62bn of its own money, with no borrowing. It states its purpose as pure investment plus constructive dialogue aimed at raising Yamato's medium- to long-term value.
The case against management
Farallon attributes the problem to management, not the market. It says Yamato cut its initial operating-profit forecast in each of the five years from the year to March 2022 to the year to March 2026, and that its profitability is markedly lower than that of peers in the same business environment. Farallon believes the main cause is a failure to revisit management policy and decision-making built on past success, even as the industry has changed. These are Farallon's assertions; the filing supplies no response from Yamato.
The two proposals
Farallon says the current president, who became president and executive officer in April 2026 and representative director and president in June, cannot break from the past and carry out bold reform unless the chairman steps aside. The chairman is a representative director who led Yamato as president for many years. By letter and in meetings, Farallon says it has proposed that the chairman be removed as representative director and retire as a director.
It has also told Yamato, in the same way, that all directors other than the president should be outside directors, a so-called monitoring board. Farallon argues this would strengthen oversight and clarify the executives' authority and responsibility. The filing does not say whether Yamato has agreed to either proposal.
What may follow
The filing reports no important proposal acts, a separate disclosure category. It does say Farallon may propose further changes if needed to improve profitability, restructure the business and strengthen governance. These include director appointments, changes in board size or terms, mergers, share exchanges, business sales, dividend policy, capital policy, delisting, and the acquisition of control by a third party. Whether to make any such proposal, and its content, timing and conditions, are all undecided.