Rudlin Consulting

Category: Japanese business in Europe

  • The history of Japanese financial services companies in the UK and EMEA

    The history of Japanese financial services companies in the UK and EMEA

    Banks

    Japanese banks first established operations in London in the 19th and early 20th centuries, to support Japan’s overseas trade and gain knowledge of modern financial and commercial practices. Japan was rapidly industrializing after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and many of the banks worked closely with the Japanese government on their modernization programme. The banks and their sister companies, the trading companies, are a core part of what is known as the zaikai – the Japanese finance and business community which has power and influence in Japanese political circles to this day.

    The Yokohama Specie Bank, founded by Japanese statesman Ōkuma Shigenobu and a group of Yokohama merchants in 1879, opened in London in 1881. After World War II, it reformed as the Bank of Tokyo and later merged with Mitsubishi Bank in 1996.

    Mitsubishi Bank had also started in the 19th century, as the currency exchange arm of the Mitsubishi trading company, and then took over the 119th National Bank. Mitsui Bank and Sumitomo Bank were also offshoots of their respective trading companies. The three banks all had operations in London before World War II, which closed down during wartime, and reopened in the 1950s.

    Fuji Bank, on the other hand, was far more domestic oriented, with no overseas branches, although it, too, grew from a trading company – Yasuda. It was the biggest bank in Japan until the Dai-ichi Bank merged with the Nippon Kangyo bank in 1971 to form the Dai-ichi Kangyo Bank (DKB).

    After the bubble burst

    In the 20th century, up until the Japanese economic bubble burst in 1990, the main bank system dominated, whereby major Japanese companies stayed loyal to one of the megabanks. The megabanks were the primary lender among a hierarchy of several banks to one firm and typically held shares in the firm. Main banks would send in advisors in times of financial distress and provide corporate governance to their client firms. The main banks were Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Sumitomo Bank, Fuji Bank, Mitsubishi Bank, and Sanwa Bank – all of whom also had a large retail banking arm.

    They were in turn part of a keiretsu – groups of companies with similar origins, holding shares in each other – the four major groups being Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo and Fuyo (formerly Yasuda).

    The Sanwa Bank was at the heart of the post war Sanwa group, which functioned as a financial, Osaka based keiretsu for companies that were not part of the four major groups. Osaka was traditionally the business, merchant capital of Japan and the historic base for the Sumitomo keiretsu. Another keiretsu, based around DKB bank included the Osaka based trading company Itochu and what is now called Sojitz. Mitsui and Mitsubishi were Tokyo based keiretsu.

    After the bubble burst, and intensifying after the Asian financial crisis of 1997, a wave of restructuring and mergers hit the Japanese financial services sector. Mitsui Bank merged with Taiyo Kobe Bank in 1990 and became Sakura Bank. Then, despite coming from different keiretsu and different regions of Japan, Sumitomo Bank merged with Sakura Bank, in 2001 and became the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. The name in Japanese is reversed, as Mitsui Sumitomo Banking Corporation. The whole group is known as SMFG.

    DKB merged with Fuji Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan (IBJ) in 2000-2002 to form the Mizuho group. In the UK, DKB UK became Mizuho Corporate Bank and IBJ UK became Mizuho International – the securities and investment banking arm.

    The Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi merged with Union Finance Japan (which in turn was the product of a merger of Sanwa Bank, Tokai Bank and Toyo Trust and Banking) in 2002 to become the MUFG group.

    Given the above history, the following challenges are still being faced by the Japanese megabank groups, MUFG, SMFG and Mizuho:

    • Strategic clashes between a dominant domestic retail banking business and smaller overseas corporate banking, investment banking and securities businesses
    • Overseas customer bases are still largely composed of Japanese corporate clients
    • Loyalty of cohorts of executives to their original bank rather than the whole group. This should dissipate by 2040 or so, when these cohorts will have retired.
    • Lack of collaboration between businesses with different origins within the group such as securities, trust banking and asset management, making it difficult to put customer needs first, with one offering, as a universal bank.
    • Integration of legacy IT systems from different constituent banks

    Branch status

    Mizuho and MUFG in the UK have branch status – both being branches of the Japanese parent company. This has significant impact on their degree of autonomy, capital and decision making capability.

    Norinchukin Bank, a financial institution established by Japanese agriculture, fishery and forestry cooperatives, is also a branch in the UK.

    Government entities such as The Development Bank of Japan, Japan Bank for International Cooperation (a Japanese public financial institution and export credit agency) and the Bank of Japan all have branches in London. Bank of Japan also has branches in Frankfurt and Paris.

    Securities and investment

    Nomura is Japan’s largest investment bank and traces its roots to a money changing business in Osaka in the late 1800s, becoming Nomura Securities in 1925. Nomura opened its first office in London in 1964. It acquired Lehman Brother’s European and Middle Eastern operations in 2008.

    Daiwa Securities started life in Osaka too, as Fujimoto Bill Broker in 1902. It became Daiwa Securities in 1943 and opened its first office in London in 1964. It had a joint venture with SMBC which was dissolved in 2009, and the company was renamed Daiwa Capital Markets. It acquired Close Brothers in the same year, forming Daiwa Corporate Advisory.

    MUFG has a securities arm – MUFG Securities EMEA PLC in London, with a branch in Dubai. There is also MUFG Securities Europe in Amsterdam, with branch in Paris.

    Mizuho International in London has a Mizuho Securities Europe GmbH subsidiary in Germany.

    Trust Banks

    Trust banking is far more common in Japan than in the West. The trust banks act as trustees for contracts between clients and provide banking and financing services alongside investment-related services such as asset management, pension plan design and management, real estate brokerage, and appraisal services for both corporate and individual banking clients.

    The Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank is not within the SMFG group. It has  been winding down its limited company in London, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust (UK) Ltd and folding personnel into its London branch. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking is within the MUFG group.

    Asset Management

    Most of the Japanese asset management firms set up in London in the 1980s bubble era but are now having a second lease of life, thanks to the Japanese government policy of encouraging households to shift their cash savings into investments and promoting Japan as a “Leading Asset Management Center.”

    Leasing and Financing

    Another asset that Japan’s high net wealth individuals have shown an appetite for is aircraft, which are then leased. A large number of Japanese aircraft leasing companies have set up in Ireland, due to its highly favourable tax regime for lease payments.  

    In the UK, Japanese leasing and financing businesses have been more focused on consumer markets. Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance has become Mitsubishi HC Capital, following its merger with Hitachi Capital in 2021. It trades in the UK under the Novuna brand. In 2022 Mitsubishi HC Capital UK acquired the European subsidiaries of MHC Mobility, providing leasing, decarbonisation and mobility solutions across Europe.

    SMBC and Mizuho also have leasing arms in Europe, as do the car companies Toyota and Honda, along with financing services.

    Fuyo Lease, which has its roots in the Fuyo group companies, has two subsidiaries in the UK and Orix has also has two subsidiaries in the UK including Gravis Capital Management – as well as an aircraft leasing business in Ireland.

    Fintech, cryptocurrency

    Nomura has invested in a digital asset subsidiary, Laser Digital, in the UK in 2022. It specializes in trading, asset management, solutions and early-stage investing, employing 28 people.

    The Japanese crypto assets exchange bitFlyer set up in Luxembourg in 2017 and was granted a Payment Institution licence in 2018.

    It was announced in January 2025 that SBI Holdings has agreed to take a stake of more than 70% in German fintech company Solaris as part of a new fundraising round. SBI acquired British crypto currency company B2C2 in 2020.

    Non-life Insurance Companies

    Japanese non-life insurance companies also have their origins in Japan’s trading companies. Like the banks, the bursting of the Japanese economic bubble in 1990, and then the Asian financial crisis of 1997, triggered a series of restructuring.

    Although word Mitsubishi does not appear anywhere on Tokio Marine’s website, it is a core Mitsubishi group company, which began direct underwriting operations in London in 1880 and established local agents there in 1890. It acquired the UK insurance company Kiln in 2008 and the Bermuda headquartered HCC Holdings in 2015.

    The Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance and Aio Nissay Dowa group (MS&AD), has, like SMFG, its origins in the Sumitomo and Mitsui keiretsus, but is independent from SMFG.

    MS&AD was formed in 2010 as a merger of three insurance companies – Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, Aioi and Nissay Dowa. Aioi was the product of  a 2001 merger between  Dai-Tokyo Fire & Marine Insurance and The Chiyoda Fire & Marine Insurance. Nissay Dowa was formed, also in 2001, from  Dowa Fire & Marine Insurance and Nissay General Insurance. MS&AD acquired British insurer Amlin in 2015/6. Aioi has had a long standing relationship with Toyota for car insurance, reinforced by the historic relationship between the Mitsui & Co trading company and Toyota.

    Sompo was formed from the merger of Yasuda Fire & Marine and Nissan Fire & Marine insurance companies in 2002. Sompo then went on to acquire Nipponkoa in 2014. It acquired British insurer Canopius in 2014 and divested it in 2017. It then acquired Bermuda based insurers Endurance Specialty in 2016/7.

    Life Insurance

    The Mitsubishi group life insurance company is Meiji Yasuda, the product of a merger between Meiji Life and Yasuda Mutual Life in 2004. The latter was previously in the Fuyo keiretsu – which included the Marubeni trading company.

    Dai-ichi Life was formerly a sister company of Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, now part of Mizuho.

    Nippon Life is the largest Japanese life insurance company by revenue and was affiliated with the Sanwa group.

    All have had a relatively small presence in London but have recently been active in acquiring overseas companies – Meiji Life acquiring American Heritage Life in 2024/5, Nippon Life acquiring Bermuda based, UK origin Resolution Life in 2024/5 and Dai-ichi Life acquiring New Zealand’s Partners Life in 2022.

    This is an excerpt from our 2025 report on Japanese Financial Services in the UK and EMEA, with a directory of 300 Japanese financial services companies in the region  – which can be purchased and downloaded online here

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  • Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 4

    Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 4

    (continuing from part 3)

    Britain still seemed very inward looking when we returned to it in 1977 after five years in Japan. Friends and family showed very little interest in asking us about our experiences.

    At school, I was the outsider, the odd one. Thanks to my funny name I was teased with chants of “PernilleitsDanish”.  I was totally ignorant of British popular culture and it was only through pure luck that I passed the leader of the girl’s gang’s test of what football team I supported (thank you Liverpool) and which Bay City Roller I fancied (thank you Les McKeown for being obviously the most handsome). If I talked about my time in Japan people would either ask me to say something in Japanese, or say “yes, you look a bit Japanese.”

    Looking back on it, I estimate my school was 99% White British and British born. There were immigrants in Britain, of course, but in particular areas of the UK like Bradford or Brixton. This is confirmed by the chart here showing the census results from 1851 to 2021* – in the 1970s only around 5 or 6% of the population were born overseas, compared to around 17% now.  In current day Japan, around 3% of the population have foreign nationality – similar to the UK in the 1950s.

    The Wimbledon effect, whereby foreign ownership of businesses and foreign talent were welcomed into the UK, started under Thatcher’s conservative government, with a programme of privatisation and deregulation. With this also came public sector funding cuts, including in higher education. This spurred my parents into moving back to Japan again, just as I was finishing my school.

    *The eagle eyed will note this chart is based on research by MigrationWatch, which campaigns to reduce immigration. I have  spent many years researching the census returns myself, and suspect there will be problems with the data as often place of birth entries are mangled or illegible or not given – particularly if digitised records that are on Ancestry.com are used. I suspect the mistakes cancel each other  out, however, and the general overall trend is correct. Note however that MigrationWatch does not include Ireland born people as “foreign born”. Also that people who are only visiting the UK temporarily are recorded in the census.

     

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  • Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 2

    Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 2

    (continuing from part 1)

    I lived in Japan three times in my life. The first time was in 1972, when I was six years old, following my stepfather’s appointment as a visiting lecturer at Tohoku University in Sendai. It was not at all common for British people to travel to Japan at that time – unlike now where everyone seems to want to visit Japan. Our friends and family asked why on earth we would want to do this. My school friends thought China and Japan were the same country. I imagined all Japanese wore dressing gowns and had chopsticks in their hair.

    My parents decided to move to Japan due to the frustration they felt about Britain at the time. Inflation was high, the oil crisis was beginning to develop and there was a miners’ strike leading to a state of emergency. The Troubles in Northern Ireland meant terrorist incidents were commonplace. Britain had become known as the “sick man of Europe.”

    As there weren’t many foreigners living in Sendai, there was no international school. So I went to Shirayuri, a Catholic girls private school. I was the first non-Japanese person to attend the school. You can see me in the photo with my mother, in my sailor uniform. I also had to wear a hat and carry a Randoseru backpack.

    As I said in the interview at the end of my Jiji lecture, because foreigners were so unusual in Sendai, people would stop in the street to look at us and shout “wah, gaijin” (wow, a foreigner) and the school children would crowd round me at playtime to look into my blue eyes or touch my fair hair. But after six months they got bored and I was just “uchi no gaijin” (“our foreigner”).

    I also learnt Japanese very quickly – and the accent and natural grammatical fluency have remained with me to this day. I later came to understand that it is quite easy to pick up other languages at that age, as your native language is not yet hardwired. I even came top in composition once. My parents were very excited for me but I was more sanguine – saying it was deserved because it was the best composition.

    I think we struggled a bit at first in our pre-war freezing cold ijinkan house, but by the time we moved further south to Kobe, my mother also had a job and I remember living a comfortable life in a nice modern house in a town between my international school in Kobe and my stepfather’s university in Osaka. I would commute to school every day by myself on two different trains and be met after Saturday morning school by my parents. They would take me for a Sachertorte in one of the local coffee shops, before wandering round Kobe’s excellent department stores and bookshops, or going to the sports club to play squash or swim. On Sundays we would attend the Seamen’s Mission church and then have lunch at the Italian restaurant opposite the Catholic church.

    It was quite a shock when we returned to Britain in 1977.

    (Part 3)

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  • Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 1

    Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 1

    Pernille Rudlin gave a talk in Japanese to the Jiji Top Seminar on November 22nd 2024. She took look at 40 years of Japanese business in the UK, how it has evolved and what the future might hold.

    Through the lens of her own career working in and with Japanese companies, she traced the fortunes of the British and Japanese companies who supported the 1985 “Japanese Miracle” conference at Oxford University which she helped with as a student. She covered the impact of the “Big Bang” in 1986, the bursting of the Japanese economic bubble, the Asian financial crisis, the dotcom bubble and crash, the global financial crisis and Brexit. The shifts in balance between manufacturing, services and European coordination were also analysed, with some thoughts on what the new Labour government might mean for Japanese companies in the UK.

    This is a summary in English of the talk – each slide will be a separate post.

     

    Slide 1: In researching this topic, I came across the poster you can see here. It’s from the 1906 General Election, and as you can see it was issued by the Conservative Party. The alliance that they refer to was the 1902 Anglo-Japanese alliance. Both countries were worried by the the threat from Russia, and then in 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War, Japan defeated Russia, the first time in modern history that an Eastern nation had defeated a Western one.

    The British government praised the Japanese for their victory and the British public were also admiring of Japan’s “pluck” but the alliance was not a vote winner for the Conservatives, who lost badly to the Liberals. The 1906 election also saw the rise of the newly renamed Labour Party, headed by Keir Hardie. Our prime minister, Keir Starmer’s parents named their son after Keir Hardie – evidence that Starmer very much came from a Labour supporting household.

    When I first saw this poster, it set me thinking whether we were about to see an Anglo-Japanese Alliance 2.0.

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  • Monstarlab pulls the plug on UK operation

    Monstarlab pulls the plug on UK operation

    Japanese digital transformation consulting and software company Monstarlab is winding up its UK subsidiary. Monstarlab listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2023, but announced in August 2024 that due to significant solvency issues with growing losses and negative net assets, it would start on headcount reduction and other cost cutting.

    Monstarlab acquired Danish mobile app company Nodes in 2017, and through it their operations in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Their UK operations in London and Newcastle have around 30 staff, far short of the 100 promised when the Newcastle office was opened in 2021.

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  • What impact will Tokyo Metro’s stake in the Elizabeth Line operating company have?

    What impact will Tokyo Metro’s stake in the Elizabeth Line operating company have?

    Tokyo Metro and Sumitomo Corporation have 17.5% share each of consortium that won the 7 year contract to run the Elizabeth Line, meaning Hong Kong owned incumbent MTR lost. Sumitomo Corporation is looking to develop commercial and retail opportunities around stations – as happens in Japan and is beginning to happen in London Underground stations. Tokyo Metro’s incentive for getting involved is that it did not attract institutional investors when it listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange last month, because of lack of growth opportunities in Japan, where population is declining.

    But what impact will Tokyo Metro have on the actual operations of the Elizabeth Line? I share the Toyo Keizai correspondent’s scepticism as to whether it will “breathe a breath of fresh air into the British railway industry in the form of ‘Japanese railway culture’” There no indication as yet that Tokyo Metro will be starting a subsidiary in the UK, nor that any Tokyo Metro staff will be transferred to London.

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  • Mitsui establishes electromagnetic steel sheet processing company for EVs and power plants in Poland

    Mitsui establishes electromagnetic steel sheet processing company for EVs and power plants in Poland

    Japanese trading company Mitsui & Co has announced that it will establish an electromagnetic steel sheet processing company, Polskamit Steel in Skarwimiez in southern Poland. Polskamit will process, stock, and inspect electromagnetic steel sheets used in motor cores for electric vehicles such as hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs), as well as transformer cores used in power plants and substations. It is scheduled to start operations in April 2026.

    Mitsui first established, in 1993, an electrical steel sheet processing company in the Netherlands and then in the Czech Republic. Mitsui also set up Mitsui High-Tec Poland in 2018, employing around 88 people, providing lamination press processing of in-vehicle motor cores for electric vehicles.

    According to US research firm BloombergNEF, Poland is a major producer of lithium-ion batteries, ranking second in the world after China and first in Europe in terms of national battery production capacity in 2022.

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  • Japanese shipping company NYK to invest in British-Irish sea urchin farming and biodiversity venture

    Japanese shipping company NYK to invest in British-Irish sea urchin farming and biodiversity venture

    Japanese shipping company NYK is investing in Urchinomics, a British-Irish venture which will feed up starving sea urchins so they can be sold for food – and also support biodiversity.

    Kelp forests on the seabed are being eaten up by an overabundance of sea urchins. Kelp forests are “blue” carbon as they absorb and store CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and they also support marine biodiversity by providing a habitat for small fish and other aquatic life.

    The lack of kelp food means that the sea urchins are not edible. Urchinomics will collect them, feed them on other natural food and then use the profits from sales of urchin (known as uni, a delicacy in Japan) to reinvest in collection of urchins but also restoration of the kelp forests.

    A new job for the 21st century – urchin rancher.

    Unidon photo By Totti – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68677193

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  • Japanese car companies consolidate into two camps – in the UK too

    Japanese car companies consolidate into two camps – in the UK too

    Recent reports that Mitsubishi Motors is to join the Honda-Nissan alliance show that Japanese car companies are forming two camps – Toyota and Not-Toyota.

    According to the Nikkei, Mitsubishi Motors, which is 34% owned by Nissan, will work with Honda and Nissan to finalise the details of their partnership on electric vehicle development, including standardising in-vehicle software that controls cars.

    Even before the competitive pressures from China and Tesla in electric vehicles became apparent, what has happened to the Japanese car industry in the UK over the past decade has been an omen of what was to come. Mitsubishi Motors sold off its Nedcar operation in the Netherlands, its only manufacturing plant in Europe, to VDL in 2012. Nine years later it shut down its UK sales company, the Colt Car Company, a joint venture originally with Mitsubishi Corporation.  In the same year, Honda shut down its Swindon plant, leading to several other automotive suppliers who were reliant on Honda withdrawing from the UK too.  Honda’s European headquarters continues to be based in the UK, however.

    Nissan’s commitment to the UK is clear from a recent announcement that it will lead MADE NE (Manufacturing, Automation, Digitalisation, Electrification North East) with local government partners to create open access training facilities in Sunderland, covering education from primary school to apprenticeships, with a particular focus on EV and battery manufacturing.

    MADE NE will also support support targeted industrial innovation projects with funding and equipment.

    Toyota has two “Lean Management” centres, at its plants in Burnaston, Derbyshire and Deeside in North Wales, open to any non-competitive organisation who wants to develop people and processes in the Toyota Way.

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  • Poland revisited

    Poland revisited

    It’s been just over three years since I last wrote in this column about Poland. Then, the EU was about to freeze funding to Poland because of their violation of the rule of law. I warned in my article that although Poland was clearly very attractive to Japanese companies, with stable economic growth over three decades and a cheap but educated labour force, this was not enough for long term sustainability if legal and state institutions were not stable, independent and transparent.

    Now, after his victory in the October 2023 elections, Donald Tusk has become Prime Minister, replacing the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.  Tusk has arrested two politicians for abuse of power and has presented the justice reforms needed to unfreeze EU funds.

    The number of people employed by around 300 Japanese companies in Poland has continued to grow despite the political and legal instability, to over 60,000, fourth in Europe after the UK, Germany and France. According to a recent JETRO survey*, Poland is seen as the most promising market by Japanese companies in Europe, for the fifth year running. This is a reflection both of its relatively large population and that it is still a developing economy. 

    The importance of Poland to Europe, both culturally and economically, was brought home to me again on my recent trip to Warsaw and Krakow. Although the largest Japanese employers in Poland are the manufacturers such as Sumitomo Electric Industries, NGK and Toyota, there are substantial numbers working in the services sector. I was there to deliver training to a newly established shared services group for a Japanese electronics company. Shared services has become an increasingly common feature of multinationals in Europe, whereby there are hubs in several countries,  supporting all the European operations with logistics, HR, IT and legal services.

    I went to Krakow, not for work, but to see the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology. It is named Manggha because this was the pen name of Felix Jasieński, a 19th century art connoisseur who collected Japanese artists such as Hiroshige. He donated his collection to the National Museum in Krakow where it was seen by the a young Andrzej Wajda, later to become a famous film director. Wajda later donated money to fund the Manggha Museum, which opened in 1994, supported by the Japanese government.

    The JETRO survey also showed that Japanese companies have a strong interest in supporting the rebuilding of Poland’s neighbour, Ukraine. Poland has been a supporter of Ukrainian sovereignty, and for its integration into Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union. Relations between the two countries deteriorated somewhat, however, when PiS came to power in 2015. At the beginning of the Russian invasion, Poland provided strong support to Ukraine but in recent months tensions have flared up again. The hope, both for the EU and Japan must be that these tensions are resolved now Tusk is in power, although no resolution to the Russian invasion is in sight.

    *https://www.jetro.go.jp/world/reports/2023/01/9692d660c7fb3d25.html

    Top 30 Japanese companies in Poland 2021 – Rudlin Consulting

    This article was first published in Japanese in the Teikoku Databank News on 14th February 2024

    Photo of Manggha Museum – (Nemuri), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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