PFI Japan Project Bonds Roundtable 2017: Participants

Toru Inoue
Goldman Sachs
Toru Inoue runs the infrastructure and structured finance team in Goldman Sachs’ Tokyo office. He has taken a lead role in developing the world’s first project bonds backed by solar assets, and in arranging Japan’s first revenue bonds issued by Ibaraki prefecture’s waste management agency. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs in 2006 he was at Nikko Salomon Smith Barney where he led the Atami Beach Line transaction, Japan’s first securitization of a toll road.

Fumihiro Honda
Japan Credit Rating Agency
Fumihiro Honda is general manager of the project and asset finance department at Japan Credit Rating Agency, a department he built from scratch. This role has given him extensive knowledge of Japanese financial institutions, and in particular domestic project and asset finance. Before joining JCR he worked at Mitsui bank (SMBC) in Tokyo.

Kah Locke Tham
Canadian Solar
Kah Locke Tham has spent the last two and a half years at Canadian Solar, one of the world’s largest solar power companies with operations in more than 90 countries. As vice president of corporate finance he is responsible for coordinating corporate financing initiatives and project finance globally and developing strategy to grow downstream solar development, and is also a member of the group’s investment committee. He has two decades worth of experience in the technology business, having started his career in the technology group at EY in Singapore.

Yoshihiko Kawakami
Nishimura & Asahi
Yoshihiko Kawakami is a partner at law firm Nishimura & Asahi in Tokyo. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he specialises in real estate, structured finance, and international finance law, covering a broad range of practice areas. He has been involved in numerous significant transactions employing various structures with a variety of underlying or related assets, including movable property, whole businesses, and intellectual property. He has a broad understanding of project finance generally, and renewable energy finance specifically, including mega solar project bonds.

Toshihiro Hiraoka
Japan Asia Group
Toshihiro Hiraoka is head of project finance funding at Japan Asia Group, which is committed to working with both public and private sector clients to develop green communities and renewable energy. Before joining JAG Hiraoka worked for Creed Corporation, a real estate fund company, as a fund manager, before which he was a bond fund manager at Nichido Fire And Marine.

Tomoki Muto
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ
Tomoki Muto is general manager and head of the project finance office, where he leads the teams responsible for MUFG’s global project finance presence. He joined MUFG in 1993 and started working in the project finance business from 1997, mainly in the infrastructure and power sectors. He was seconded to the Inter-American Development Bank from 2002 to 2005, where he successfully syndicated multiple deals in Latin America. Prior to his current position, he was posted to Sydney, Australia where he led the team to close transactions across a wide range of sectors including renewable energy.

Akinao Nishio
Dai-ichi Life
Akinao Nishio has been the general manager and head of the structured finance group within the fixed income department at Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company since April 2016. He has been at Dai-ichi Life for approximately 21 years and has held various roles, investing across corporate bonds, equities and funds – including the infrastructure sector.

Shinichiro Miyawaki
Metlife Asset Management
Shinichiro Miyawaki is the representative director of MetLife Asset Management Corp in Japan, which primarily manages Japanese yen denominated fixed income investments and derivatives. Since November 2014 he has been responsible for overseeing and directing all the investment activities and corporate functions within the business. Miyawaki was previously head of the securities department of MetLife Insurance KK, and has more than twenty years of experience investing in corporate debt products, private placements, structured products, equipment financing, equities and fund investments.

Rod Morrison
Editor PFI, Thomson Reuters
Rod Morrison has been editor of Thomson Reuters’ Project Finance International (PFI) publication since 1993, during which time the product has grown to become a global leader in its field. The PFI website is at www.pfie.com.

Minerva Lau
Asia Pacific Editor PFI, Thomson Reuters
Minerva joined PFI in late 2000 and has been covering both the international and the fast-growing domestic bank debt markets for projects in the energy, infrastructure and industrial sectors in Southeast Asia, North Asia and more recently also the rapidly expanding markets in the Indian subcontinent. Minerva also produces comprehensive special reports on Asia Pacific and on India, and writes and commissions articles on energy and infrastructure.