• 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...
  • 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...
  • Japanese companies in the UK 20 years on - After a three year gap due to the pandemic, my company has rejoined the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in the UK. My company was the first non-Japanese company, with no Japanese nationals working for it, to be allowed to become a member in 2004. This followed a change in the rules, in reaction to declining...
  • Australia overtakes China as second largest host of Japanese nationals living overseas - The headline in Japan on the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs latest data on Japanese nationals living overseas was that the number of Japanese living in China had dipped below 100,000 for the first time. This meant China was overtaken by Australia as the second largest host of Japanese nationals, below the USA, also for...
  • Japanese financial services companies in the UK and EMEA after Brexit - Japanese financial services firms in the UK have remained fairly resilient since Brexit, in terms of turnover and headcount – with significant growth shown by the non-life insurers and leasing and financing companies, but less growth for some in the banking and securities sectors.  On the other hand, the UK has had significant outflows of...
  • 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...
  • Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 7 - (continued from part 6) The Japanese consumer electronics companies which were such prominent sponsors of the 1985 Japanese Miracle conference at Oxford University had all set up manufacturing in the UK in the 1970s. Sony was the first, taking over an empty factory in Bridgend, with support from the Welsh development agency. Sony denied that...
  • Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 6 - (continued from part 5) The Japanese Miracle was the title of a conference held by AISEC at Oxford University in December 1985. Japan’s economic success was beginning to be noticed, but often as a threat, with books starting to appear such as Japan as Number 1  and American unionists smashing up Toyota cars. I joined...
  • Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 5 - (continued from part 4) In the next part of my speech to Jiji Top Seminar, I took Napoleon Bonaparte’s view that “to understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty” and looked at the state of the UK in the 1980s, to understand the influences this...
  • Kubota to build excavator factory in Germany - Japanese construction machinery maker Kubota will build a new factory in Germany to produce mini excavators, planning for a long-term rise in demand in Europe despite sluggish demand in the region. Kubota already has a factory nearby employing over 500 people and another factory in France, producing tractors, where it also has an R&D centre....

Last updated by at .