Warren Buffett has placed a $6bn contrarian bet on Japan’s five biggest trading houses, the century-old commodity specialists that are increasingly transforming into global venture capital and private equity businesses.

Mr Buffett’s move follows an unprecedented $132bn exodus of foreign investment from Japanese equities over the past 32 months on fading optimism about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic programme. It makes his investment company Berkshire Hathaway one of the biggest shareholders in Mitsubishi Corp, Mitsui & Co, Itochu Corp, Sumitomo Corp and Marubeni Corp.

The investment in Japan also marks a decisive lunge beyond the familiarity of his home market in the US, where technology stocks have surged to record highs but other industrial investments have suffered heavy setbacks because of the Covid-19 pandemic.