Big plans are underway for Myoko Kogen as more global investors look to get in on Japan’s red-hot tourism rebound.
About north-west of Tokyo, in a slivered valley that leads to the Sea of Japan, lies a sleepy pocket of the nation’s ski country called Myoko Kogen. Bustling in the 1980s bubble era, with young skiers and neon-lit streets, the area has now seen better days.
Chan has just taken the first step on what he hopes to pin his legacy. His firm has raised ¥35 billion from institutions in Japan and Singapore for its Japan Tourism Fund 1, with much of that tagged for the ski initiative. Investors include Mizuho Bank, Temasek Holdings’ Pavilion Capital and a Singapore university endowment, Patience said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We’re ready to do this in a very proper way and launch it big time”: Singapore-based Ken Chan, who was born in Japan, has a passion for the Myoko Kogen project.There are risks for a project in its infancy. Funding is one – just the first phase will need almost half a billion dollars in investments over the next three to four years alone, according to Chan’s estimates.
In 2004, he was transferred to Japan as its representative in the country, where he built relationships with top executives such as Shinichi Sasaki, the former deputy president of trading giant Sumitomo Corp. But it’s clear that he has a special passion for the ski project, as he runs through charts and maps, pointing out properties in negotiations and where he plans to install housing for workers. His firm already owns 350 hectares of land and parts of two mountains straddling Niigata and Nagano prefectures, including Madarao Mountain Resort, he said.