Stuart Porter

Financial Services

Profile

Stuart is an international tax adviser with over 30 years of experience covering banking, capital markets, investment management, private equity, insurance, real estate, infrastructure and transfer pricing matters for funds, portfolio companies and financial services clients.

Stuart advises major US, European, Asian and Japanese funds on investment structures, transactions and fund raising. He also regularly advises global institutional investors, including international pension funds, funds of funds and sovereign wealth funds, in relation to their Japanese portfolio investments and commercial joint ventures. Stuart advises on market entry strategies for financial services companies starting up or expanding in Japan, supports inbound M&A transactions across a wide variety of sectors, leads tax due diligence teams and advises on investment acquisition and financing strategies. He has led multiple projects advising international consortiums on the privatisation of Japanese airport concessions.

Stuart has held several Asia Pacific leadership positions from his base in Tokyo, including for many years acting as the tax leader for the private equity industry, and subsequently the insurance sector. Since 2021, Stuart has acted as the Asia Pacific tax leader for real estate, infrastructure and real assets.

In July 2023, upon election, Stuart was appointed as a member of the General Oversight Committee (GOC) of the PwC Japan Group as well as a member of the Oversight Committee (OC) of PwC Tax Japan.

Qualifications and licenses

Stuart is a lawyer qualified in both England and Australia, with degrees in economics (BEc) from Macquarie University and law (LLB) from the University of Sydney. Stuart attained a Master of Laws from (LLM) from Queen Mary University of London as an inter-collegiate postgraduate student where he was a prize-winner in finance law.

Before moving to Tokyo in 2003, Stuart worked in our UK firm’s London office for six years focusing on banking and capital markets. Prior to that, he also worked for PwC firms in Hong Kong and Sydney.

Other activities

Stuart has acted as an expert witness before the High Court of Hong Kong, where his evidence was fully accepted in adversary proceedings on judgment and subsequently upheld by the Court of Appeal.

Stuart writes and speaks regularly on Japanese tax law developments, and has undertaken many projects for Japanese government bodies, including the Ministry of Finance, the Financial Services Agency of Japan, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, supporting government and industry association (including the Alternative Investment Management Association [AIMA] and Tokyo’s FinCity) tax reform initiatives.

Stuart is the joint chair of PwC and the Urban Land Institute’s industry-leading survey and report, Emerging Trends in Real Estate® Asia Pacific, and oversaw the 2023 and 2022 publications.

Professional vision

Work hard, stay humble, maintain your discipline; look after your clients, teams and colleagues as well as ensuring some time for your family and friends as well as yourself.

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