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The Nikkei has just published a list of Japanese companies whose stock price increased tenfold or more over the past 34 years. Many are in advanced technology manufacturing, food, retail and digital services and with a few exceptions, their overseas expansion, if any, has not included Europe. Foreign investors were keen to support rapidly growing, lesser known companies – the Nikkei article specifically mentions Baillie Gifford’s Shin Nippon Trust, as it was started during Japan’s Bubble Era, in 1985. Shin Nippon’s share price has increased fivefold since 1989. The top 20 below have all seen their share prices rise by fortyfold or more since 1989.
At number one is Zensho, a food, catering and restaurant company – their share price is 236 times higher than it was in 1989. It has ambitions to be the world’s number one food company and acquired Snowfox in the UK in 2023. 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. As a consequence Zensho is now the third largest Japan owned company in the UK.
Lasertec is in second place with its share price increasing by a multiple of 176 since 1989. It designs, manufactures and sells semiconductor-related devices and other devices. It has subsidiaries in Asia and the USA but not in the EMEA region.
Third is Line Yahoo – LINE is a messaging app, and recently merged with Yahoo Japan. There is a Line Euro-Americas Corp in Los Angeles, which had a partnership with Telefonica in 2014, and subsidiaries in Asia, but apart from that, not much operationally in EMEA.
Fast Retailing, the owner of Uniqlo is at 4, and of course has many outlets across Europe employing around 3,700 people.
Pan Pacific International in fifth place is the owner of the famous Don Quijote (known as Donki) discount store. Apart from the name, it does not undertake much European activity. There are Donki shops in Asia and USA (Hawaii) and Pan Pacific also owns the Californian supermarket chain store Gelsons.
Nitori Holdings at #6 is a furniture store chain – outlets in Asia but nowhere else overseas.
CyberAgent at #7 covers media business, game business, Internet advertising business and investment development business – and has subsidiaries in Asia and the USA but as far as we are aware has not been active in Europe.
Keyence – who develop and manufacture equipment and solutions for factory automation, sensors, measuring instruments, vision systems, barcode readers, laser markers and digital microscopes is at #8 with over a 1,000 employees in Europe – over 600 in Germany and regional headquarters in Belgium.
Harmonic Drive‘s regional headquarters are in Germany (the result of an acquisition), employing over 300 people, with a sales operations in the UK. It engineers and manufactures precision servo actuators, gearheads and gear component sets. #9
Disco, a manufacturer of semiconductor equipment and precision tools, also has its regional headquarters in Germany, with operations in the UK, France and Morocco. #10
11. Adastria – a clothing retailer – in Asia.
12. MonotaRO – e-commerce company of industrial supply products – subsidiaries in South Korea, Indonesia, India
13. Kobe Bussan – a food company with subsidiaries in Egypt, Myanmar and China
14. CTS – Construction Total Support Service
15. Systena – total solutions and services from system planning and design to development, introduction, maintenance and user support
16. Rorze – subsidiaries in Germany, Asia, USA. Development, manufacture and sale of motor control equipment, semiconductor-related equipment and flat panel display (FPD) -related equipment.
17. Takeuchi manufacturing – subsidiaries in Germany, France, UK, Netherlands – excavators, loaders, dumpers.
18. Monogatari Corporation – restaurant chain with the management philosophy “Smile and Sexy” – yes really.
19. Tokyo Electron – which we already featured in our top 5 Japanese companies who grew the most in the UK 2023.
20. Transaction – seems to design and distribute various consumer gadgets – watch out for the badly functioning English language website and constant requests to check you are human. Appears to have vape shops in the USA and 2 subsidiaries in Asia.
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