In today’s briefing:
- [Japan Partial Tender] Maki-San Threatens BASE (4477 JP) Tender – Financial Engineering Risk Rises
- HSCI / HK Connect Dec 2026 Index Rebalance Forecast
- Japanese Single Stock Implied Volatility: The Growing Gap Between Stocks and the Nikkei
- Aequitas: AP Memory Technology GDR Offering – Well Flagged US$422m GDR
- HSCI Index Rebalance Preview: Southbound Stock Connect Additions; Momenta Needs a Moment
- Gemini at Work 2026. Impressive Enterprise AI Strategy Is Revealed. Key Takeaways & Full Transcript
- How SoftBank (9984 JP) Became a Proxy to Trade OpenAI, One Headline at a Time…
- SK HYNIX (000660 KS / SKHY US): The Solidigm Confusion Is a Gift. Average Down.
- Jio Platforms Pre-IPO: Tearsheet
- Micron sells AI memory before the year starts, and each bit takes three times the wafer
[Japan Partial Tender] Maki-San Threatens BASE (4477 JP) Tender – Financial Engineering Risk Rises
- On Friday 9 October, largest BASE Inc (4477 JP) shareholder MAKI Hiroyuki who is also President and CEO Melco Holdings (6676 JP) (a.k.a. Buffalo Inc), announced his new larger stake.
- Or part of it. He got to 23.32% by 2 October. I expect it’s 26-27% as of now, but could be slightly higher. He also released a change in purpose.
- That change suggests substantial disagreement with and distrust of management. It threatens a Tender Offer to get over 30% (which he says he intends). Interesting times lie ahead.
HSCI / HK Connect Dec 2026 Index Rebalance Forecast
- We screen third-quarter listings ahead of the HSCI fast-entry result, due on 20 Nov 2026 after market close.
- Unlike September, the December cycle adds only third-quarter listings, by market value coverage within the HSCI.
- Three stocks are screened as high-conviction ADD candidates this cycle.
Japanese Single Stock Implied Volatility: The Growing Gap Between Stocks and the Nikkei
- The widening gap between Japanese single stock and index implied volatility appears concentrated rather than broadly distributed across the market.
- Information Technology and Industrials account for much of the concentration among stocks trading at unusually wide implied vol spreads.
- A number of stocks have gone from merely over-extended to dislocated, potentially pointing to a regime change in their volatility relationship against the Nikkei.
Aequitas: AP Memory Technology GDR Offering – Well Flagged US$422m GDR
- AP Memory Technology (6531 TT) is raising around US$422m, selling 14.8m shares via a GDR offering. Proceeds will be used to procure raw materials overseas and fund working capital.
- Similar to previous GDR listings, the firm has undergone a long drawn out process prior to launching the deal, having to jump through a number of board/shareholder/regulatory approval loops.
- In this note, we run the deal through our ECM framework and comment on deal dynamics.
HSCI Index Rebalance Preview: Southbound Stock Connect Additions; Momenta Needs a Moment
- There were 31 new listings on the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (388 HK) in Q3, of which 14 were A/H listings.
- We forecast 5 additions to the HSCI in December and 2 of those additions will then be added to Southbound Stock Connect. SHEIN was already added to the index earlier.
- As a stock with Weighted Voting Rights (WVR), Momenta Global (6880 HK) will need to wait till early February to be added to Southbound Stock Connect.
Gemini at Work 2026. Impressive Enterprise AI Strategy Is Revealed. Key Takeaways & Full Transcript
- Google’s latest frontier model, Argon, delivers frontier performance and complex workflows across knowledge work, real-world software engineering, and cybersecurity defense.
- The Chrome team (3 billion users) has been using Argon to refactor features that span millions of lines of code. Normally, this would take months. They’ve done it in weeks
- Gemini is the agent. The model underneath is a separate choice, and it is yours. From Argon at the frontier to Flash for speed and to the latest Claude models.
How SoftBank (9984 JP) Became a Proxy to Trade OpenAI, One Headline at a Time…
- Funding done, stock’s shares still falling – what is the market pricing?Softbank has invested $64.6bn for about 13% of OpenAI, and the $40bn bridge loan has been repaid and cancelled.
- What is left is a mark, not a cash call. The stake is both equity upside + collateral for a $10bn margin loan priced at SOFR plus 425 basis points.
- 10 November Earnings: results for the six months to 30 September will show whether that mark holds.
SK HYNIX (000660 KS / SKHY US): The Solidigm Confusion Is a Gift. Average Down.
- Solidigm IPO rumours have hurt: ₩129tn of MCAP erased since 26 Sep. Investors clearly dislike it; and management adding no value by stating “nothing decided yet.”
- Our math: a US$100bn IPO moves value −1.7% to +1.1%; even a fire-sale costs 6.2%. Abandonment recovers ~₩176,000 per share.
- Maintain BULLISH, FV ₩2,700,000 (+60%). At 6.2x FY27E P/E, average down. Cyclicals are bought when the bad news is out.
Jio Platforms Pre-IPO: Tearsheet
- Jio Platforms, a digital connectivity provider, has filed its draft prospectus. The 19 bookrunners include international banks MS, UBS, BOA, Citi, CLSA, GS, HSBC, Jefferies, JPM and BNP Paribas.
- We look at the company’s two core businesses, mobile connectivity and fixed broadband.
- We then look at the company’s financial profile, cash generation, leverage and pre-IPO investor backing.
Micron sells AI memory before the year starts, and each bit takes three times the wafer
- Micron, one of three companies that make the stacked memory beside AI chips, commits most of each year’s supply of it before that year starts.
- By Micron’s own account, each unit of it uses about three times the silicon of ordinary computer memory.
- So while AI memory grows faster than the rest, it takes silicon away from the ordinary memory in phones, laptops and servers, and keeps that short too.
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