Pernille Rudlin - Rudlin Consulting

About Pernille Rudlin

Pernille Rudlin was brought up partly in Japan and partly in the UK. She is fluent in Japanese, and lived in Japan for 9 years.

She spent nearly a decade at Mitsubishi Corporation working in their London operations and Tokyo headquarters in sales and marketing and corporate planning and also including a stint in their International Human Resource Development Office.

More recently she had a global senior role as Director of External Relations, International Business, at Fujitsu, the leading Japanese information and communication technology company and the biggest Japanese employer in the UK, focusing on ensuring the company’s corporate messages in Japan reach the world outside.

Pernille Rudlin holds a B.A. with honours from Oxford University in Modern History and Economics and an M.B.A. from INSEAD and she is the author of several books and articles on cross cultural communications and business.

Since starting Japan Intercultural Consulting’s operations in Europe in 2004, Pernille has conducted seminars for Japanese and European companies in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA, on Japanese cultural topics, post merger integration and on working with different European cultures.

Pernille is a non-executive director of Japan House London, an Associate of the Centre for Japanese Studies at the University of East Anglia and she is also a trustee of the Japan Society of the UK.

Find more about me on:

Here are my most recent posts

Data and trust in Japan and Europe

I recently logged back into an online events platform which I had not used for a couple of years, in order to set up ticket sales for a seminar. A message popped up saying that in order to continue using the site for sales, I needed to register with the US Inland Revenue Service. I started to fill in the form, but began to feel uneasy about handing over so much confidential data to a US government agency, given the activities of DOGE.

I found an alternative events platform, which was developed by a UK based company. The payment system it used had joint headquarters in the US and Ireland, and was a system I was already registered with. Because of the Ireland headquarters, there was no need to hand over my data to any US agency.

I then started to look at alternatives to other US based digital services and discovered a website specifically set up to recommend European alternatives to US based companies. Many of the sites recommended still use Google search engines, but operate via a VPN and have strong data privacy controls.

I was reminded of research on data privacy I commissioned around 15 years ago when I was working for a Japanese IT company. The research analysed surveys on the levels of trust different countries around the world had with regard to having personal data stored in or shared with other countries. Europeans – particularly in Germany and other countries who had experienced dictatorships – turned out to be highly sensitive to having their data stored in countries whose regimes they did not trust.

A couple of years later, the General Data Protection Regulation was introduced in the EU and the regulations based on it still hold in the UK, even after the UK left the EU. In the past year, both the UK and the EU have started to fine digital services companies for improper use of personal data.

The good news for Japanese companies is that then and now, Japan is highly trusted in Europe. However, the language barrier and also cultural differences means that it is unlikely Japanese digital services will be an attractive alternative for European users. Similarly, European digital services may be hard to use for Japanese customers.

More than ever, the merging of products, data and services means that European and Japanese companies will need to partner with each other to develop trusted, global solutions.

This article by Pernille Rudlin originally appeared in Japanese in the Teikoku Databank News on 11th June 2025

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Japan – Europe, Middle East & Africa business update

The Japanese clutch and automotive transmission manufacturer Exedy is buying Protean Electric, the UK-based developer of in-wheel motors (IWMs) for electric vehicles, for around €30m. Exedy says the acquisition will help it to transform its portfolio to provide new opportunities in the automotive sector as it undergoes “a major transformation”.

What Japanese companies are doing about the situation in the Middle East – Inpex, Chiyoda, Toray, MUFG, Sony are pulling out some or all of their expatriate staff and families from UAE and Saudia Arabia. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Sojitz, Kanadevia, and Yusen Logistics are all banning travel through or to Middle East. Muji has closed its UAE store.

Asahi Kasei has unveiled plans to acquire German biopharmaceutical firm AiCuris in a deal worth 780 million euros ($920 million). The deal is intended to expand Asahi Kasei’s portfolio of treatments for immune-related infections . Asahi Kasei’s operations span across chemical engineering, housing and healthcare. It plans to integrate research, clinical development and commercialization of its pharmaceutical business across Japan, the U.S. and Europe. AiCuris develops antiviral therapies for people with weakened immune systems. Its flagship product, Prevymis is used to prevent viral infections in organ transplant recipients.

Long-standing accounting fraud at Nidec could result in a $1.6bn fine. The company’s founder and former CEO, Shigenobu Nagamori stepped down as chairman emeritus in February 2026. He is seen as ultimately responsible for the problems, as he “applied considerable pressure on executive officers in the Nidec headquarters who were responsible for the business units and subsidiaries as well as the CFOs to achieve the performance targets.” Nidec made several acquisitions overseas, and now has 13,691 Nidec employees in Europe, Middle East + Africa – out of 104,000 worldwide.

German automaker BMW will adopt smart-car technology supplied by Japanese company NTT Docomo Business for new models to be sold globally in 2026, instead of its usual German supplier.

Toyota group company Denso has bid to acquire Japanese semiconductor manufacturer Rohm. Rohm’s European headquarters are in Germany, and it employs around 186 people in Germany, France, Spain, UK and Hungary, out of 23,000 worldwide. Despite the German-sounding name, Rohm is a Japanese company, founded as Toyo Electronics in 1958, then renamed R.Ohm, then renamed Rohm.

Denmark’s Vestas, the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines used in offshore wind power generation, will set up a factory in Japan – possibly in Kitakyushu or Hokkaido – by fiscal 2029 to tap growing demand there and elsewhere in Asia. Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy and Hitachi used to make wind turbines in Japan, but pulled out, as did Mitsubishi Corp from investing in offshore wind projects in Japan.

Japan in the UK – The Brexit Agreement 5 and 10 years on

It is five years ago today that David Henig, director of the UK Trade Policy Project at the think-tank European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) and Pernille Rudlin, Managing Director of Rudlin Consulting, were the speakers for the Japan Society’s webinar – The Brexit Agreement One Month On.

Viewing it again, and looking at the data five years on, have our predictions stood the test of time?

David Henig‘s 5 key points:

No surprise that it was disruptive – this was the biggest change in international trade for many years, and would inevitably have a disruptive impact, particularly in terms of food and VAT. The disruption would lessen over time, but the barriers to trade and unpredictability of further impacts will not go away.
Long-term economic adjustment will occur – because of the barriers to trade – this will impact smaller companies particularly, and there will be a loss of manufacturing capability. There will be an absolute decline in goods trade. The impact on services is less clear – they are likely to be less affected, and there may even be an increase in the supply of remote services. There may also be a substitution of UK based production for imports.
The UK government does not understand trade, in particularly the importance of non tariff barriers, and focuses too much on tariff reductions.
Nissan was a national champion of getting a deal rather than a “no deal” – particularly getting a better deal on rules of origin for electric vehicles than might have been expected.
The UK will seek to improve relations with the EU, after some interval – years rather than weeks or months. The UK could join the CPTPP and have deals with Australia and New Zealand. The US deal is likely to be delayed because Biden is not interested. These deals will not, however, have much impact on the British economy, which is likely to continue to be negatively impacted by Brexit.

Pernille Rudlin’s “Big Theory of Brexit” for Japanese companies in the UK

Pernille Rudlin described her Big Theory of Brexit as being that it had accelerated trends that were already there for Japanese companies. Japanese companies are highly risk averse, and had been preparing for a hard Brexit for six years already, and this had given them an incentive to undertake consolidation and restructuring which they might have been contemplating already.

Three trends in Japanese companies in the UK 2016-2021

Looking over the past five years (2016-2021), some trends were already apparent:

The number of Japanese companies based in the UK has declined
The number of UK based employees of Japanese companies has fallen since 2018
Investment flows from Japan into the UK have decreased, with some disinvestment

However this is from a high base, and very few Japanese companies are quitting the UK entirely – and it is unlikely they ever will.

The 2026 update on the above 3 trends:

The number of Japanese companies based in the UK has continued to decline since 2015, whereas there has been an increase in the number of Japanese companies hosted by other major European countries.

2. The number of UK employees of Japanese companies has stagnated since 2018-9

…with a small uptick in the past two years – resulting in a 20% net growth since 2015/6. This was lower than the overall growth in employees of Japanese companies in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region since 2015/6 which we estimate as being around 30%.

3. Investment flows from Japan into the UK have decreased, with some disinvestment, but seem to be picking up again

and the net flow over 2016-2024 was higher for the UK than for the Netherlands or Germany.

Pernille then looked at sector by sector trends in the Japan Society webinar, for 2016-2021. Comparing this with what happened in the next five years to each sector will be covered in a later post.

Biggest European companies in Japan

Having looked at the largest foreign-owned companies in Japan in a previous post, we thought we’d take a look at the largest companies in Japan owned by European companies in more detail.

By employee number, they are:

Mitsubishi Fuso Truck – Germany (89.2% owned by Daimler), #3 overall, 10,633 employees
Bosch – Germany, #10 overall, 5,254 employees
Chugai Pharmaceuticals – Switzerland (59.8% owned by Roche), #12 overall, 5,026 employees
AstraZeneca – UK, #17 overall, 3,700 employees
IKEA Japan – Netherlands (yes, not Sweden, it’s owned by Ingka Group, which is a franchisee of Inter IKEA Systems B.V.), #19 overall, 3,602 employees
NOK – Germany (25% owned by Freudenberg Group – maybe not strictly speaking foreign owned therefore), #21 overall, 3,337 employees
DHL Supply Chain – Germany, #24 overall, 3,000 employees
Compass Group Japan – UK, #26 overall, 2,684 employees
Novartis Pharma – Switzerland, #30 overall, 2,600 employees
GlaxoSmithKline – UK, #32 overall, 2,500 employees
Louis Vuitton Japan – France, #32 overall, 2,500 employees
Nestle Japan – Switzerland, #34 overall, 2,400 employees
L’Oreal – France, #35 overall, 2,350 employees
Veolia Jenets – France, #41 overall, 2,000 employees
Phillips Japan – Netherlands, #43 overall, 1,942 employees
DHL Japan – Germany, #45 overall, 1,900 employees
Pioneer – Sweden, #46 overall, 1,859 employees
SAP Japan – Germany, #49 overall, 1,727 employees
Boehringer Ingelheim – Germany, #50 overall, 1,700 employees
Valeo Japan – France, #52 overall, 1,660 employees
Bayer – Germany, #56 overall, 1,591 employees
Ichikoh industries – France (61% owned by Valeo), #60 overall, 1,485 employees
Cap Gemini – France, #62 overall, 1,400 employees
Sanofi – France – #65 overall, 1,334 employees
Autoliv – Sweden – #66 overall, 1,332 employees
Lush – UK – #67 overall, 1,300 employees
Johnson Controls – Ireland, #70 overall, 1,282 employees
Novo Nordisk – Denmark, #72 overall, 1,274 employees
Sika – Switzerland, #80 overall, 1,136 employees
ICON Clinical Research – Ireland, #85 overall, 1,000 employees
NN Life Insurance – Netherlands, #87 overall, 975 employees
Zurich Insurance – Switzerland, #89 overall, 946 employees

= 33 BASF Japan – Germany, #92 overall, 920 employees

=33 GKN Driveline Japan – UK, #92 overall, 920 employees

35. Mahle Engine Components Japan – Germany, #96 overall, 880 employees

36. Lacoste Japan – France, #98 overall, 851 employees

37. Dassault Systems – France, #100 overall, 850 employees

There are many missing names from this, so it is just indicative, based on whatever company responded to Toyo Keizai’s enquiries. but overall it seems that European companies represent around 37% of the largest foreign companies in Japan. American companies are around 46% of the largest foreign companies in Japan, with the remaining 17% being owned by companies from Taiwan, Israel, India, China, Hong Kong, Canada and Australia – plus Japan Display, owned by a company, Ichigo Trust, registered in the Cayman Islands, which is technically UK territory.

10 of the 37 are German, 9 French, 6 British (or 7 if you count Japan Display), 5 Swiss, 3 Dutch, 3 Swedish, 2 Irish, 1 Danish. The missing major European economies are Italy and Spain. Judging by size of economy, the UK looks a bit underweight.

8 are pharmaceutical manufacturers or clinical research related and the other main categories are automotive manufacturing/engineering and consumer brands.

At least 6 (7 if you count Japan Display) are the result of acquisitions or at least a major investment in Japanese companies – Compass Group acquiring NKS for example.

Two swallows make a summer?

We were somewhat sceptical when the Financial Times greeted Mitsubishi Corporation’s $1bn acquisition of Norwegian company Grieg Seafood’s salmon farms as being part of a record breaking acquisition spree by Japanese companies. It seemed that here in Europe at least, Japanese acquisitions had not really picked up momentum at all, compared to the pre Brexit and pre pandemic years.

Then today it was announced that Yusen Logistics is spending $1.45bn on acquiring Dutch healthcare logistics company Movianto – subject to EU approval. NYK, the parent company of Yusen Logistics, had already acquired a majority stake in Swedish company Northern Offshore this year and UK company Global Freight Solutions and Dutch company Parts Express last year. Movianto has around 5,400 employees in Europe, primarily in the Netherlands, France and UK.

Although Mitsubishi Corporation has a long history of involvement in salmon and seafood, stretching back to the mid 20th century, as the Financial Times article points out, the acquisition of salmon farms represents a more general trend of Japanese food related companies strengthening Japan’s involvement in the food supply chain, from farming through to restaurant chains. The most recent entrants into our Top 30 largest Japanese companies are Fulham Shore (The Real Greek and Franco Manca restaurant chains, now owned by Toridoll) and Yo! Sushi, now owned by Zensho.

Yusen Logistics is already in our Top 30 largest Japanese companies in the UK, with 1,863 employees. If Movianto UK remains an independent company rather than merged into Yusen Logistics, it too will be in the Top 30, with 1,354 employees. If they are merged, Yusen Logistics will be the 4th largest Japanese company in the UK, after Nissan, Fujitsu and Kwik-Fit (owned by Itochu).

Both NYK and Mitsubishi Corporation are in the same Mitsubishi group of companies, who have been key players in Japan’s global supply chains for the past 150 years.

Rudlin Consulting is the Europe, Middle East and Africa Representative of Japan Intercultural Consulting, which provides post-merger integration cultural training and consulting.

Biggest foreign companies in Japan

It all depends on what you mean by big, of course. And, it turns out, what you mean by foreign.

Our favourite way of measuring size and growth at Rudlin Consulting has been by numbers of employees, because ranking by capital or turnover risks comparing apples to oranges. Taking a look at the rankings compiled by Toyo Keizai, the top 10 foreign companies in Japan in terms of numbers of employees are:

Accenture (25,000 employees)
Gibraltar Life Insurance (12,003 – US parent company Prudential)
Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus (10,633 – German parent company Daimler Truck)
Metlife (8,569 US parent company)
Prudential Life Insurance (6,169 US parent company)
AIG (6,064 US parent company)
Proterial (5,759 was Hitachi Metals, now owned by Bain)
Sharp (5,603, now owned by Taiwan’s Foxconn/Hon Hai)
Starbucks (5,505 US parent company)
Bosch (5,254 German parent company)

It’s interesting to note that the majority of these companies are services sector, particularly insurance companies. Three out of the four manufacturing companies were originally Japanese but have been acquired by foreign companies. Some of the life insurance companies have also built up presence in Japan through acquisition, but are also divesting. Bosch also acquired a few Japan owned businesses but also divested its stake in Denso.

Toyo Keizai has not designated a nationality or parent company for Accenture, presumably because of being a federation of local partnerships. Similarly, EY and Deloitte should be in the top 10 as both employ over 10,000 but because of the partnership structure are not included in Toyo Keizai Rankings.

The rankings by capital (not market capitalization) are dominated by financial services sector companies:

Nippon Paint (now majority owned by Singapore based Wuthelam Holdings)
Metlife
IBM Japan
BNP Paribas Securities
Citigroup Securities
Axa Life
Goldman Sachs Securities
Bank of America Securities
Gibraltar Life
JP Morgan Securities

The rankings by turnover are:

Sharp
Nippon Paint
Microsoft Japan
Chugai (owned by Roche)
Proterial
IBM Japan
Mitsubishi Fuso Truck
NOK (owned by German company Freudenberg)
Accenture
Mercedes Benz

60% of these companies were originally Japanese.

Looking at all three rankings, it’s not surprising to see that these companies are long established in Japan. Looking at the newcomers, and the sectors of the future, there is a clear trend of IT, systems and software companies entering the Japanese market, primarily from the USA, but also France, Germany, Luxembourg, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the UK. We’ve certainly seen a marked increase in enquiries for our services at Japan Intercultural Consulting from non-Japanese companies in this sector over the past couple of years. Japanese companies are embarking on digital transformation and further globalization, and the organisational change that this entails throws up plenty of cross cultural challenges both for the suppliers of digital technology and their clients.

Japan Intercultural Consulting holds regular online seminars covering topics such as cross cultural communications, business trips to Japan and what Japanese customers want.

Japanese financial services in the UK and EMEA

The UK’s financial regulatory authority has announced further plans to ease the rules for banks and insurers in the UK. This is in line with both previous and current British government policy of putting more emphasis on growth and investment over concerns about safety and risk.

It is also part of trying to find a benefit to Brexit, now that the UK does not need to comply with EU rules. Reducing the regulatory burden might free up resources for Japanese financial services companies to invest in innovation, or support their clients’ investment in infrastructure and zero carbon projects in the EMEA region.

Japanese financial services capital has flowed out of the UK into Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands

Although Japanese financial services companies have maintained the scale of their presence in the UK since Brexit in terms of employee numbers, Japanese capital has flowed out of the UK financial services sector over the past few years. There have been inflows of Japanese financial services investment into Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.* The former is undoubtedly related to the large number of Japanese aircraft leasing companies in Ireland, attracted by the beneficial taxation regime. Luxembourg is host to many Japan owned investment funds and the regional headquarters of the major Japanese insurers.

Amsterdam the post Brexit choice for EU regional HQ

As for the flow of Japanese capital to the Netherlands, this is due to the pull of Japanese corporate customers having moved their regional headquarters there, after Brexit. As EU regulations insist that financial services firms have substantial capital and key decision makers in the European Union, many Japanese banks therefore chose Amsterdam for their EU regional headquarters too.

There are now around 10,000 Japanese nationals in the Netherlands – a 50% increase on a decade ago. The key decision makers at Japanese financial services firms in the region are not all Japanese however. Often the EU subsidiary reports into a UK based EMEA holding company and both the EU and UK boards of those companies have a majority of European directors.

Universal banking leading to restructuring in EMEA

Japanese banks have undertaken substantial restructuring in the region, merging their securities business into the banking side, to become universal banks. This has also resulted in the UK becoming host to corporate function services for the whole region.

It’s clear that London continues to have an attraction as a global financial centre in terms of a large and specialist labour pool and infrastructure, as well as a place to innovate. A loosening of regulations compared to the EU’s more stringent regime will strengthen this appeal.

*data taken from https://www.mof.go.jp/english/policy/international_policy/reference/balance_of_payments/ebpfdii.htm

This article originally appeared in Japanese in the Teikoku Databank News on 12 March 2025

The puzzle of Japanese foreign direct investment in the UK

Something has been puzzling me for a few years about Japanese foreign investment in the UK. The net investment by Japanese companies in the British “communications” sector since 2016 is US$55bn, over three times more than the next largest net investment, which was in the food manufacturing sector.

There have been various acquisitions and investments over the past few years in British food manufacturers that I am aware of; Zensho acquiring Taiko Foods and Yo! Sushi, Mizkan acquiring various British food brands and factories for Branston, Haywards and Sarsons, Calbee acquiring Seabrook Crisps and various acquisitions in fish processing.

But what Japanese “communications” companies could have invested billions in the UK? The Japanese term used by the Ministry of Finance for the communications sector is 通信業 (tsuushingyou) and the main players in Japan in this sector (perhaps in the UK we would use the term telecommunications) are considered to be NTT, KDDI and SoftBank. NTT and KDDI have been investing in data centers in the UK in recent years, and NTT placed its global non-Japan HQ in London, but surely this would not have cost tens of billions. Which leaves SoftBank.

SoftBank spent US$6.5bn on acquiring ARM in 2016, which may account for the amount shown in 2017. But what about the $10bns thereafter, and the large withdrawal of over US$20bn in 2020? I am guessing this must be money moving in and out of SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which is headquartered in London and managed by SoftBank Investment Advisers.

Another puzzle is what is going on in the services sector – US$33bn was invested in Britain 2016 and then a disinvestment of US$32bn in 2018, leaving a net investment of only US$661m. “Services” is a very large umbrella, and may have covered the shifting of European logistics, warehousing and headquarter services functions out of the UK and the capital to go with it, to the EU in preparation for Brexit.

There were disinvestments in the finance and insurance sector in 2018, 2019 and 2022 but overall a net investment of US$6.7bn. Judging by the dates, the net positive total is “despite” Brexit and the Truss budget.

Transportation equipment manufacturing, which would include car manufacturing saw a few instances of disinvestment, primarily related to Honda closing Swindon in 2021 and some of its suppliers shutting up shop in the UK. Overall, despite some tough years, the sector is $3bn in the black, in terms of net investment since 2016, helped by a $2bn investment in 2024. Japanese net investment in almost all other sectors apart from services has outstripped this, however.

For comparison, the charts for the main investments in Germany and the Netherlands are given below:

Comparing by sector, in finance and insurance, the Netherlands has yet again been the clear beneficiary of Brexit, receiving around US$21bn in net investment, with Germany receiving around around US$9bn, compared to US$6.7bn for the UK.

For transportation equipment manufacturing, Germany is the clear winner with US$9.5bn net investment 2016-2024, compared to US$3.7bn to the UK and US$1.75bn to the Netherlands – even though Germany does not host any Japanese OEM car manufacturing.

The investment by Japanese companies into the UK “communications” sector at US$55bn dwarfs the US$2.8bn invested in the Netherlands and US$1.5bn invested in Germany – which does reinforce the view that this is a SoftBank Vision Fund driven figure, rather than any actual investment in the British telecommunications infrastructure. You might have expected to see comparable investments from NTT in Germany and the Netherlands if it had been a business decision rather than an investment fund decision.

Overall, the comparative advantages in trade and investment between the three economies, in Japanese eyes is clear – Britain – digital, services and communications (despite the SoftBank reality distortion effect), Germany – automotive and chemical related manufacturing and corporate banking and the Netherlands – continuing to be strong in food manufacturing, but now also seen as an EU base for financial services headquarters – effective from a tax perspective, but not needing as many employees as manufacturing.

For further insights on Japanese foreign direct investment in the UK and EMEA financial services sector, our Japanese Financial Services in the UK and EMEA 2025 report and directory can be purchased and downloaded here.

What is a Japanese company anyway?

One of many jobs I did not get over the years was a board position for an investment trust focused on Japan. In the “any other questions for us?” bit at the end, I raised the issue of “how do you define a Japanese company? Is it enough just to say it is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange? Or headquartered in Japan?” In retrospect, a foolish question to ask at that point and the chair simply shut me down and said that was a topic for debate for another day. Which of course never happened. And a year or two after that interview, I had a certain amount of schadenfreude watching the fund’s Net Asset Value take a dive.

Is SoftBank?

What triggered that question was that the fund had made a lot of money over the years investing in SoftBank, which is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is headquartered in Japan, but to my mind, not really a Japanese company. This is not some racist point about the founder, Masayoshi Son, being ethnically Korean. More that, as an investor, rather than just simply thinking of your portfolio as a series of aggregated regional or national risks, with each regional or national economy moving in a particular direction and counterbalancing each other, in the case of Japanese companies, another risk to consider might be the particular way that traditional Japanese companies behave and whether the fund is investing in those traditional Japanese companies, or emerging ones.

Nissan – run by a Mexican, using Chinese batteries, manufactured in the UK for sale to the US?

Even some of those traditional Japanese companies are no longer owned by Japanese shareholders. I was reminded of this by the recent coverage in the UK of the British government contributing a substantial part of the £1bn funding for an AESC electric vehicle battery factory to be built in Sunderland, to supply Nissan. AESC is described as “Japan-owned” but actually the controlling majority of shares is owned by Envision, a Shanghai based company. AESC’s headquarters are in Japan, however, and Nissan still owns some shares in it.

That this news came a day after the announcement of a UK-US trade deal which will (if signed) dramatically reduce tariffs on UK cars being exported to the USA does not seem a coincidence – even though some commentators say this scanty deal was rushed through so as to be announced in time for the 80th anniversary VE day.

Another announcement the UK government might have wanted to synchronise with was the leaked news that that the new, Mexican CEO of Nissan will announce tomorrow (13th May) plans to cut 20,000 jobs worldwide. Looking at the capacity utilisation and sales data for Nissan, Japan, the USA and China look likely to bear the brunt of this. Production has already ended in Argentina and India. Nissan will also announce that it is not going ahead with building a battery factory in Japan. So, using the Sunderland plant and the AESC factory for batteries for the new Leaf, and exporting to the USA looks like a plausible plan now and one that the UK government is presumably also happy to back.

Other Nissan suppliers, traditionally Japanese, are also now foreign owned, depending on how you classify this. Marelli (which used to be Calsonic Kansei in the UK) and Vantec (a logistics company) are both now owned by KKR Japan – the Japanese operation of the US owned private equity and investment company, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

Back to SoftBank again

If you look at our 30 largest Japan-owned companies in the UK, employing around 65,000 people, you’ll see some surprising names such as Kwik-Fit and The Fulham Shore (owners of The Real Greek and Franca Manca), which was acquired by Toridoll, who have other more obviously Japanese brands such as Marugame Udon. Other companies such as Stapleton’s Tyre Services, the Financial Times, Micheldever Tyre Services, Building Design Partnership and Liberata are also all acquisitions by Japanese companies. And of course, ARM, which was acquired by SoftBank in 2016 An acquisition which, according to the British government at the time, showed Britain’s economy can be successful after leaving the EU. SoftBank then tried to sell ARM to Nvidia, and finally floated it in 2023 – on NASDAQ, rather than the London Stock Exchange.

Largest Japan owned companies in the UK – 2024

The largest Japan owned companies in the UK employ around 65,000 people and have grown around 5% on average in terms of employee numbers in the year 2023 to 2024.

The top 5

The top three largest companies are the same as in 2015/6 – Nissan Motor Manufacturing with around 7,000 employees, down 500 from 2015/6, Fujitsu Services, with around 6,000 employees, down from nearly 10,000 in 2015/6. The third largest company, Kwik-Fit (owned by Itochu) has around the same number of employees (5,000) as they did nine years ago.

Toyota Motor Manufacturing was the fourth largest Japan owned company in 2015/6 but has been overtaken by Dentsu UK and ARM (owned by SoftBank). Dentsu UK has grown significantly as a result of the merger of its UK regional operations – but also due to further acquisitions.

New entrants

New entrants for 2024 are the result of acquisitions in the food services sector – Toridoll, who acquired The Fulham Shore (brands including The Real Greek and Franco Manco), adding to their Marugame Udon chain, and Zensho, who acquired Yo! Sushi, through their purchase of Wonderfield, who also own Taiko Foods, a sushi supplier.

Notable growers

Companies which have grown at an above average rate over the past year include logistics companies Yusen Logistics and Vantec (owned by KKR Japan, mainly supplying Nissan), as well as other services sector companies such as SMBC Bank International, NTT Data UK and Dentsu International. In the manufacturing sector, Marelli Automotive Systems (also owned by KKR Japan) has grown significantly, but is still 4% down on nine years ago, whereas Hitachi Rail, which is quadruple the size it was in 2015/6, shrunk its workforce by 4% over the past year. Two companies with manufacturing in the UK – Mitsubishi Electric Air Conditioning and Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies – have both doubled in size since 2015/6.

Drop outs

Those companies who have dropped out of the top 30 since 2015/6 are largely those who have divested, ceased or cut down manufacturing operations, such as Honda, Toyoda Gosei, Japan Tobacco (closing its Gallaher factory) and Princes (divested by Mitsubishi Corporation). Pilkington UK, acquired by Nippon Sheet Glass in 2006, has halved in size and car part manufacturers Unipres, Denso and Yazaki have all cut back their workforces significantly.

Non appearances

Several Japanese companies undoubtedly have more than 1,000 employees in the UK, but do not disclose this. Sony Europe, MUFG Bank and Mizuho Bank are all branches, so do not have to publish annual reports in the UK showing their employee numbers. Uniqlo only discloses employee numbers for the whole of Europe.

For further details, our Top 30 largest Japanese companies for 2024 is available for purchase and download online (£3+VAT) here.

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