Japanese business in Europe

Japan’s Oji completes acquisition of Finnish film and packaging producer Walki

Japanese paper and packaging group Oji Holdings Corp completed the acquisition of Finnish film and packaging producer Walki Holding Oy in mid April 2024. Walki was owned by One Equity Partners since 2018. It has 17 production facilities in Finland, Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Poland, the UK, and China and employs more than 1,700 people.

Oji owns two other European subsidiaries – Kanzan Spezialpapiere in Düren, Germany – with around 300 employees, and the Italian manufacturer of packaging and filling machines, IPI, which it acquired in 2023.

Oji Holdings Corporation was ranked as the sixth world’s largest paper & pulp company in 2022 and has nearly 38,000 employees, 156 subsidiaries worldwide, 86 manufacturing sites throughout Japan, forestry operations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, New Zealand and other countries around the world. Oji Holdings Corporation is listed at the Tokyo Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of approximately US$4bn.

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Muji Europe to appoint administrators

Muji Europe Holdings, the UK based parent company with 55 retail outlets in Finland, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and Denmark, Ireland and Poland, has filed for administration. It is using the UK “pre pack” administration often favoured by retailers, whereby the sale of the business has been agreed before the administrator is formally appointed.

It is therefore expected that the stores will continue to operate and the staff will continue to be employed.

Muji has said “this is part of a planned strategic restructuring of the business and Muji’s management expect to conclude a deal shortly.” Muji or rather its parent company Ryohin Keikaku had been rumoured to be considering moving the European headquarters to Germany in 2018 because of Brexit. It now has a bonded warehouse in the Netherlands and its warehousing and logistics base is within the EU. We wonder therefore whether this is not just a process for shutting down the UK HQ and setting up a new one in the EU.

Muji Europe Holdings had 168 employees in the UK in 2015/6 and now has only 31. Ryohin Keikaku Europe, also based in the UK, has 143 employees.

As the correspondent for the Toyo Keizai business magazine puts it “there is no need to take it so seriously…its influence in Europe and the United States is limited, and the company has shifted to expanding its sales channels to East Asia”. It has 494 stores in Asia, where recent store openings have been concentrated. The US operations went into bankruptcy in 2020. Ryohin Keikaku’s profit has been declining, so clearly some measures need to be taken. In the Japanese domestic market, these measures have mainly been around opening in more rural areas, often as a concession inside supermarkets, and becoming more locally rooted in terms of the product line up.

Update – Ryohin Keikaku board meeting of April 8th decided that:

“In order to develop our European business in the future, we have decided to liquidate Muji Europe Holdings to eliminate the debts and credits between the parent and subsidiary, and transfer the business to our wholly owned subsidiary, MUJI Europe Limited (UK, hereinafter “MEL”). The company decided to inherit the company and continue the business of its European companies. In conjunction with this reorganization, the company plans to implement structural reforms, including the withdrawal of unprofitable stores and review of its cost structure, in order to improve profits and strengthen its financial base.”

Largest Japanese companies in the UK – 2023

We’ve decided to stop trying to compile the Top 30 largest Japanese employers in the UK by corporate grouping. Partly this is because a substantial number of Japanese companies in the UK have become branches, so do not report their employee totals to Companies House. Another reason is that corporate groups have restructured substantially through divestment, so there are more subsidiaries which are equity affiliates rather than part of the consolidated company group, or are owned by KKR Japan (does this make them Japanese or not?). Finally, many of the largest Japan-owned companies were acquired through acquisition, but are not particularly “Japanese” in terms of their branding or executives.

Instead, we thought we’d look at the largest single Japan-owned companies – and it turns out that there are 31 who have over 1,000 employees. The full list can be downloaded for free on the link below.

The new entrant into this Top 31 in 2023 was Snowfox, a food processing company acquired by Zensho. Snowfox owns Taiko, who make sushi for Waitrose and Sainsburys and also owns the YO! Sushi restaurant chain, as well as chains in the USA and Canada.

In terms of growth, we already covered the fact that some of Dentsu UK’s and Dentsu International’s growth was due to the consolidation into Dentsu UK of its regional subsidiaries in Leeds, Edinburgh and Manchester, but there does also seem to be organic growth, and growth by acquisition too. The other companies showing double digit growth are mostly in the services sector – Yusen Logistics, Mitsubishi HC Capital and NTT Data. Only one manufacturer is showing double digit growth – Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies – a contract development and manufacturing organisation in Teesside.

The automotive sector has shrunk further – Nissan, Marelli (formerly Calsonic Kansei) and Honda Motor Europe had smaller workforces in 2023 than in 2022. Toyota has yet to file its accounts for 2023.

At risk of shrinkage or closure in the years to come look to be Hitachi Rail, whose contracts being built at its Newton Aycliffe plant come to an end in 2024 and Fujitsu, who has told staff that they will run down their Ireland operations, taking on no new contracts. This could be a pilot for what is to come in the UK.

Click here for free download of the largest Japanese companies in the UK 2023

Germany’s AEQUITA acquires German subsidiary of Japan’s Nifco

AEQUITA has added another Japanese company to its collection, following its acquisition of Nisshinbo’s TMD Friction last year. It will acquire the German subsidiary of Nifco, which was itself a German company KTW, acquired by Nifco in 2014. Nifco Germany develops and produces injection-molded plastic components for the automotive industry, with around 766 employees in Germany, as well as operations in the USA and Serbia.

We assume this acquisition does not impact Nifco UK (which was Elta Plastics, acquired in 1990) or Nifco Poland, which we believe to be a greenfield investment. Nifco had already sold its Spanish subsidiary to Grupo Taurus in 2022.

What do Nissan’s partnerships with Honda and Mitsubishi Corporation mean for Europe? Not a lot.

Honda and Nissan signing a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding on producing key components for electric vehicles and artificial intelligence in automotive software platforms is a further sign that Japanese car manufacturers are drawing their horns in and regrouping to focus on the Japanese domestic market.

It is also further evidence that Nissan’s alliance with Renault is rapidly withering away. As part of the capital restructuring, Nissan was meant to be investing €600m in Renault’s EV subsidiary Ampere. Renault announced in February 2024, however, that they would not float Ampere after all. Renault also announced in February that they were discussing EV platform sharing with Volkswagen.

Now Nissan have just announced that they have signed another MOU – with Mitsubishi Corporation – “to explore a new joint initiative in next-generation-mobility and energy-related services utilizing electric vehicles (EVs) to contribute to solving regional societal issues and to creating vibrant future communities”. Mitsubishi Corporation owns 20% and Nissan owns 34% of Mitsubishi Motors- the junior partner in the Nissan and Renault alliance.

What unites all of these announcements is the threat from China of cheap EVs. The response has been very regional – Honda was meant to be tying up with GM, but now it looks like Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi group companies (and also Hitachi) are huddling together, and back in Europe, Renault and Volkswagen are getting cosy. So we can’t expect to see Honda to return to manufacturing in Europe yet – but we may see the fruits of the collaboration with Honda being assembled in Nissan plants in Europe, and if the regional initiatives in Japan on mobility, autonomous driving and renewable energy come to fruition, perhaps versions of this may find their way to Europe.

Mitsubishi Pencil acquires German pen maker Lamy

Mitsubishi Pencil has acquired the Germany company, C. Josef Lamy GmbH. Mitsubishi Pencil say they made the acquisition in order to expand overseas and move into higher price ranges, as the stationery market in Japan is expected to shrink amid the country’s falling birth rate and digitalization efforts.

Mitsubishi Pencil was already present in Europe – with headquarters in France and operations in the UK and Spain, employing around 100 people in total – they are most well known for their uni-ball rollerball pens. Lamy has around 380 employees.

Another area of collaboration is likely to be digital writing technology.

Sony Interactive Entertainment to cut jobs and studios in Europe and globally

Sony Group has announced that it will cut approximately 900 jobs, or 8% of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s workforce. The company will reduce the number of employees working at its game development studios in all regions of the world, including Europe, America, Japan, and the Asia-Pacific region.

The layoffs affect a number of PlayStation studios, including Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, Firesprite, and it seems likely PlayStation’s London studio will be closed, following consultation.

London based Newcastle born Sony Interactive Entertainment boss Jim Ryan called it a “difficult day at our company.” He announced his retirement last year, citing the difficulties of living in Europe and working in the USA.

Sony Group’s game business has annual sales of over 4 trillion yen, making it the largest business in terms of sales. However, sales of game consoles are currently sluggish, and profitability declining due to rising development costs. The plan was to sell 25 million units of the PlayStation 5 home game console in the fiscal year ending March 2024, but this was revised downward to 21 million units on February 14th.

This news come during one of the most difficult periods the game industry has ever faced, with mass layoffs throughout 2023 and continuing into 2024.

Yusen Logistics acquires UK Enterprise Carrier Management company Global Freight Solutions

Yusen Logistics, part of the NYK Group, has acquired Noel Topco, which in turn owns Global Freight Solutions, via its subsidiary International Logistics Group. Yusen Logistics acquired ILG in 2018 bringing in omnichannel fulfilment solutions for e-commerce brands, with operations in 13 bespoke facilities in the UK and EU. GFS adds to this “advanced multi-carrier ECM technology, including higher checkout conversion, reduced cart abandonment and increased repeat-purchase.”

The NYK Group of companies in the UK now employ over 2,500 people, of which Yusen Logistics UK is the largest employer – the 14th biggest Japan owned company in the UK by our estimates, with 1,692 employees. ILG has 479 employees and Noel Topco 156.

Yusen Logistics sees this acquisition as part of their strategy to differentiate themselves from other companies by adding new platform services. “Our group aims to further grow our logistics business by building a solid business foundation in the e-commerce market, which is expected to continue expanding.”

UPDATE – in presumably related news, Yusen Logistics has announced it is investing £280m to acquire a new net zero warehouse in Northampton from real estate company SEGRO group, scheduled to open in April 2025.

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group to double UK underwriting

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group acquired Amlin (now MS Amlin) in 2016 for £3.2bn but fell into the red since due to a series of natural disasters. The company has shed around 500 employees in the UK since, and now employs around 856 people. It also has operations in France, Singapore, Netherlands and Belgium.

Its latest medium-term plan through to March 2026 shows that it seeks to generate about 30% of group profit from overseas markets, triple the roughly 10% share in the previous financial year ended March 2023. It has strengthened risk management and governance at MS Amlin and has set a goal of nearly doubling insurance underwriting capacity in the next five years through Lloyds.

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group currently has two foreign nationals in executive officer positions and intends to “increase the weight of foreign executives” to bolster management in Western regions, says CEO Funabiki. Philip Hammond, the former British Chancellor of the Exchequer now serves as a senior adviser to Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance.

Fast Retailing to expand in Europe

Fast Retailing, the owner of the Uniqlo brand, is intending to launch its sister brand GU in Europe. GU is pronounced ji-yuu, which means freedom in Japanese. It is aimed at the 10 to 30 year old age bracket, and is slightly cheaper than the Uniqlo brand. GU already opened a pop-up store in New York City’s SoHo district in 2022. It is also intending to open 10 new Uniqlo stores a year in Europe.

Fast Retailing currently has 115 stores in Europe, of which 54 are Uniqlo – 27 in France and 17 in the UK, with the rest in Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy and Luxembourg. Uniqlo employs over 3,700 people in the region. The other Fast Retailing brands are Theory, Helmut Lang, Comptoir des Cotonniers and Princesse tam tam.

Category: Japanese business in Europe