• 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....
  • JERA and BP to merge offshore wind businesses - Japanese energy provider and British oil company BP are to set up a company named JERA Nex bp in the U.K. by next September after they gain approval from authorities. They intend to invest $5.8bn in the 50-50 venture by 2030. Both have been struggling to achieve profitability in offshore wind due to rising costs....
  • Nippon Life to acquire Resolution Life - Nippon Life is negotiating to acquire Bermuda headquartered Resolution Life for $8.2bn, making it the biggest ever acquisition by a Japanese insurer. The last major acquisition in this sector was MS&AD acquiring UK non-life insurance and reinsurance company Amlin in 2015 for $5.3bn. Resolution Life was founded by British philanthropist Sir Clive Cowdery and was...
  • 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...
  • Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 3 - (continuing from part 2) When we returned to Britain in 1977 after nearly five years of living in Japan, it was quite a shock. We had become used to a lifestyle of easy travel by train or car to cities such as Osaka or Kobe with brightly lit streets full of department stores and shopping...
  • 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 –...
  • 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...

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