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Nomura – “we were going global just for the sake of going global”

Koji Nagai has been pushing structural reforms since he became President and CEO of Nomura Holdings since 2012, after the resignation of the previous CEO following an insider trading scandal. In an interview with Diamond magazine he is asked why he was chosen to become President. “In truth, I do not really know. I don’t know how long I will remain CEO but I am giving it my all”.

Nagai remembers when in 1997 the then President Hideo Sakamaki resigned because of an illicit trading scandal, and then his successor Masashi Suzuki only lasted 48 days. After him, Junichi Ujie was chosen. “It seemed extraordinary to me. Ujie had been CEO of Nomura in the USA for many years, and had never been involved with Nomura’s domestic retail business – the lifeblood of Nomura.”

“I asked President Suzuki why he chose Ujie, and he said “I didn’t choose him, the times chose him” It shouldn’t be about who gets on well or badly with whom, but what Nomura will need in 10 years time, and that meant Ujie was the only candidate.”

Ujie was President from 1997 to 2003. He started up Nomura Asset Management and Nomura Investor Relations as subsidiaries. He also restructured the company into a holding company structure and issued ADRs on the New York Stock Exchange.

This shaped Nomura for the 21^st century, says Nagai.

Nagai was told, when he first joined Nomura from university that he would never become section chief, because as a graduate from a private university, he was not hungry enough.

“There was a Nomura Man (they were all men) type”, says Nagai, and he did not really fit the aggressive salesman stereotype as he was rather shy. However when he moved to the Tokyo headquarters and headed up the company union, he became aware of the diversity of Nomura’s staff, in terms of age and gender and background.

Nagai sees becoming President after the scandal as the moment for him to put a stop to everything that up to know he had thought was not right or disliked, and so embarked on a reform of Nomura.

In an earlier interview with Diamon magazine, Nagai states that the two areas he focused on were firstly, recovering the trust in Nomura – not only through mere compliance but to foster a strong social mission and ethics.

The second area was to have a new global strategy, responsive to changes in the business environment. Asia is integrated with Japan as the “mother market” and management resources redistributed accordingly.

When Nomura acquired the European and Asian divisions of Lehman brothers in 2008, it was obvious that Japanese companies were being forced to go abroad in search of growth and so Japanese financial institutions needed to step in to help with M&A. “I have to say, however, to be honest, the answer to the question of why Nomura needed to be global was not clear. We were going global for the sake of being global”

It had been a source of pride at Nomura that they opened a New York office in 1927, only 2 years after Nomura Securities was established.

Nagai instead felt that Nomura should put customer needs first, where Nomura can add value and is competitive. So Nomura should be a financial services group based in Asia and review the business in Europe and the US, focusing more on advisory business and corporate finance.

Diversity is still important to Nagai, however. He dislikes the way people are pigeon holed as “sales” or “corporate” or “branch office” and wants to introduce career change opportunities to employees. It is important for organisations to accept “foreign bodies” such as different business backgrounds and cultures, and mid-career hires, to avoid rigidity, he concludes.

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Japan’s megabanks most popular with Japanese graduates, electronics companies making a comeback

Japanese companies’ investment in their brand marketing, particularly their websites, may have more to do with attracting graduates from Japanese universities than attracting new customers in my experience. Given that lifetime employment is still crucial to the big traditional companies (and still something many graduates aspire to), this is not surprising.

So Toyo Keizai’s survey of how the current graduate job seekers in Japan rate potential employers at the beginning and end of the recruitment process is a good indicator of the health of the brand and how well it was communicated to the job seekers. This year the megabanks such as Mizuho (#1) and MUFG (#3) are still in the Top 3 most highly rated employers even after the recruitment process, along with travel sector companies like ANA, JAL and JTB. Other financial services companies like Nomura, Daiwa and Sompo are also in the top 10 with the other megabank, SMBC at #11. This is much in line with the previous years’ graduates’ rankings.

Toyo Keizai notes that food and beverage companies seem to be increasing in popularity – Morinaga, Kagome and Kikkoman have all become more popular during the process and compared to last year. Other major companies whose ratings improved dramatically over the recruitment process (so people got to like them once they met them) and are also more highly rated this year than by the previous year’s graduates include Panasonic (up to #39 from #156 last year at the beginning of the process), Mitsubishi Electric (#41 from #154) and Toyota (#35 from #57) and Fujitsu (#47 from #210).

Trading companies such as Mitsubishi Corp, Mitsui, Sumitomo Corp and Itochu whilst still in the top 50, seem to have lost popularity compared to last year.

Japanese automotive companies represent 1/3 of top 30 Japanese employers in the UK

Fujitsu continues to be the largest Japanese employer in the UK despite recent restructuring. We’ve added Sumitomo Rubber to the list, following its recent acquisition of UK tyre wholesaler and retailer Micheldever. Along with Kwik Fit, another UK tyre dealer and car servicing company is owned by Itochu at #3, this means that over a third of the companies in the list are automotive or have a substantial automotive component to their business.

We’ve also revised upwards our estimate of the total number of Mitsubishi Corporation employees, having confirmed from various sources that its main subsidiary in the UK, Princes, the foods company, has around 3000 of its 8000 employees in its UK operations.

The top 30 now cover around 80,000 of the 140,000 employees that Japanese companies in the UK employ. Individual profiles of each company, including trends in employment, regional headquarters, European organisation and CSR and diversity analyses are available – please contact pernille dot rudlinrudlinconsulting dot com

Rank	Company	UK employees 2016
1	Fujitsu	9,905
2	Nissan	7,657
3	Itochu	6,697
4	Honda	4,565
5	Ricoh	3,702
6	Mitsubishi Corp	3,482
7	Hitachi	3,317
8	Toyota	3,233
9	Sony	2,937
10	Canon	2,744
11	Dentsu	2,571
12	Nomura	2,468
13	NSG	2,167
14	Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Goup	2,100
15	Denso	1,925
16	NYK Group	1,919
17	Mitsui Sumitomo & Aioi Nissay Dowa	1,867
18	Yazaki	1,846
19	Calsonic Kansei	1,729
20	SoftBank	1,700
21	Sumitomo Rubber	1,574
22	JT Group	1,473
23	Sumitomo Corporation	1,366
24	Fujifilm Holdings	1,292
25	Brother Industries	1,174
26	Olympus	1,157
27	Fast Retailing	1,100
28	Unipres	1,095
29	Konica Minolta	1,055
30	NSK	866
TOTAL		80,683

Japanese companies move into sort-of reassurance mode re Brexit

Both Nomura and Toyota have moved to reassure their employees their jobs in the UK are safe – for the time being. The devil is in the detail of course – Toyota says plans through to 6 or 7 years from now have already been made, after which, no one can predict anyway, and Nomura’s new COO says London will remain the main brokerage in Europe and there are no plans to move jobs to elsewhere in Europe in the next two years.

Both companies are in our Top 30 Japanese companies in the UK, employing around 5,500 between them. Toyo Keizai magazine’s recent article on whether Japanese companies will move away from the UK has helped us update the ranking further, and we can now say just under 100,000 people are employed by the Top 30. The article goes on to speculate what Hitachi might do about its rail business if the UK was to leave the single market and default to tariffs of 10%. The global headquarters were moved to the UK in 2014 and a factory has been built in Newton Aycliffe. Hitachi is competing with Bombardier (Canada), Siemens (Germany) and Alsthom (France) – the latter two being in the European Union and the eurozone of course.

“Japanese car manufacturers underpin the UK automotive industry”, says Toyo Keizai. Honda, Nissan and Toyota represent half of the 1,590,000 cars that were produced in the UK in 2015, with Nissan being the second largest manufacturer in the UK after Jaguar Land Rover. Around 80% of Nissan’s cars, manufactured in Sunderland, are exported to the EU and elsewhere. NIssan directly employs around 8000 people across the UK, and indirectly a further 32,000.

Yet 61% of Sunderland voters supported Leave, despite the fact that if access to the EU market is restricted, they are likely to lose their jobs. For Honda and Toyota, the UK only represents 2% of their total production, compared to 10% for Nissan. As the utilisation of Nissan partner Renault’s factories is not high, it’s likely production will shift to France.

However it takes time to shift production. “What sort of deal Carlos Ghosn can get from the UK government will influence how the rest of the Japanese car manufacturers will view production in the UK” says Takaki Nakanishi of the Nakanishi Research Institute.

Other issues for Japanese companies are whether the UK retains financial passporting, and for Takeda and other pharmaceutical companies, whether the European Medicines Agency stays in the UK or not.

Japanese companies in the UK

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What Japanese banks, trading companies look for in graduate hiring

The graduate hiring process in Japan reaches a peak towards the end of the year, as the naitei (informal offers) from the big firms have mostly been issued, and the smaller firms and the unlucky graduates desperately try to find solace in each others’ arms. The process is meant to start in April, when students put on identical suits and attend countless company presentations and interviews, thereby pretty much wiping the final year out in terms of getting any studying done. Japan’s universities mostly function on the American credit system, so there is not the pressure of ‘finals’ as you get in British universities, however Japan’s academics regularly complain about the damage done to the educational experience by the system. There have been attempts to move the start date to August, so that students can do some studying in the first term, but unfortunately, with a shortage of skilled labour, it’s too tempting for most firms not to try to buck the system.

The Nikkei Business magazine ran a series in December to guide students through the process, explaining what financial services companies and trading companies are looking for and offering. I thought I would share it, as it gives a flavour of the corporate culture of these elite employers who are active outside Japan. I was interested to see how much better paid on average the trading companies’ recruits are than the financial services companies, and that a global mindset is mentioned regularly amongst the financial services, but not by the trading companies – presumably a global outlook is taken for granted.

In terms of overseas experience, the Nikkei says that some of the bigger banks send out several hundred people a year to overseas postings, and this is not just to support Japanese companies overseas, but increasingly to build business with local companies too. English ability is not compulsory, but likely to be offered as training after entry.

The image of trading company employees is that they have to be able to speak English, are strong drinkers and sporty. The trading companies themselves say English ability is not compulsory and there are even some naitei offers to people who don’t have a passport. However all trading companies point out that they usually expect one of the three rotations in the first 10 or so years to be overseas. The trading companies say it is not necessary to drink, but obviously it’s a bit awkward if your counterpart is a brewery. Sportiness is not actively sought, but it’s true that on campus recruitment by employees may well focus on students who were in the same club as them.

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ

Offers naitei to 1300 graduates, starting salary is Y205,000 (around £1200) a month. Average salary of all employees is Y7.91m (around £46K). They are looking for healthy curiousity, and eagerness to take up challenges

Mizuho Financial Group

Offers naitei to 1920 graduates. Starting salary the same as BTMU. Average salary of all employees is Y7.38m (around £43K). They are looking for intellectual curiousity, a global mindset and dynamism.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking

Offers naitei to 1800 graduates. Starting salary the same as BTMU and Mizuho. Average salary of all employees is Y8.79m (£51K). They are looking for people who are good at building relationships and have a global awareness.

Nomura

Offers naitei to 600 graduates. Starting salary is Y232,300 a month (£1350). Average salary of all employees is Y11.93m (£69K). They are looking for people with ambition, honesty and flexibility.

Daiwa

Offers naitei to around 690 graduates. Starting salary is Y240,000 a month (£1395). Average salary of all employees is Y10.02m (£58K). They are also looking for honesty but also a strong spirit of enquiry

Sompo Japan Nipponkoa

Offers naitei to around 750 graduates. Starting salary is Y237,860 a month (£1383). Average salary of all employees is Y6.6m (£38K). SJNK is looking for “ability to stand on your own feet”

Trading companies:

Itochu

Offers naitei to around 142 graduates (out of 7000 applications). Starting salary is Y240,000 (£1395). Average salary of all employees is Y13.95m (£81K). They are looking for honesty and optimism

Mitsubishi Corporation

Offers naitei to around 160 graduates (out of 6000 applications). Starting salary is the same as the other trading companies. Average salary of all employees is Y13.75m (£80K). They are looking for trustworthiness, strength and intellectual ability.

Mitsui

Offer naitei to around 120-150 graduates (out of 6000 applications). Same starting salary as the other trading companies. Average salary of all employees is Y13.61m (£79K). They are looking for intellectual curiosity, ambition, ability to develop yourself

Sumitomo Corporation

Offer naitei to around 130 graduates (out of 7000 applications). Same starting salary as the others. Average salary of all employees is Y13m (£76K). They are looking for ability to innovate, execute and collaborate

Marubeni

Offer naitei to around 122 graduates (out of 7700 applications). Same starting salary as the others. Average salary of all employees is Y13.06m (£76K). They are looking for people who stand up for themselves and don’t run away (!)

LGBT and Japanese companies

Kanako Otsuji, who was Japan’s first openly LGBT member of Japan’s Diet (parliament) spoke at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation last week. Her term in office expired this July – she had replaced a party member who had resigned, and she now runs the Policy Informatics Center of LGBT, based in Osaka. One of her main campaigns is to try to get Japan’s first ever diversity law passed by 2020, in time for the Tokyo Olympics. There is already an Equal Opportunities Law in Japan, in effect since 1986 and prohibiting gender discrimination. Presumably the proposed diversity law would be to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexuality – and maybe other characteristics as such laws do in Europe, such as ethnicity/race, age and religion?

Homosexuality is not illegal in Japan, although I was surprised to hear that it is illegal in nearly half of the countries of the world. My understanding was that Japan’s attitude to homosexuality, whilst not openly hostile, was one of viewing homosexuality as just a phase people go through and certainly not something to bring into the workplace.

Nikkei Business magazine had a special feature on LGBT earlier this summer, titled “LGBT – your company cannot ignore it”. It cited the Dentsu Diversity Lab’s findings that around 7.6% of Japan’s population are LGBT in terms of gender identity/sexual preference, and of the LGBT people surveyed, 43% said they had come out of their own accord, but only 2.4% had come out to their boss and 4.8% to their colleagues. Consequently, 60% have changed their jobs, compared to 50% of the heterosexual employees surveyed. Some of the case studies included:

A person who turned down a job offer because the President said in the interview that being gay was a lifestyle choice so if it caused stress in the work place, that was their own responsibility.
Someone who had been at a major trading company for 7 years, and the next step of their career was to transfer overseas, but there was an unwritten rule that you had to be married first. The person was also worried that even if they were sent on their own, it might be to a country unfriendly to gay people. So the employee has registered with a recruitment agency to change jobs.
Another person who was transgender – male body but a woman at heart – was working in a major electronics company R&D lab, where almost everyone is male. The employee was having to put up with daily conversations that would be considered sexual harassment if a woman was present, and had to go to hostess bars at night with colleagues.

The feature then goes on to describe Japanese companies undertaking some kind of LGBT focused initiative including:

Kao started a study group on LGBT issues in 2014.
Suntory Holdings has also started seminars on LGBT for employees
Hitachi has started training centred on the HR departments of each of its group companies.
NEC is considering training on LGBT issues for the staff of its internal hotline.
Dentsu already surveys its employees on LGBT and has internal training – its Diversity Lab has noticed a big increase in people wanting the training.
Microsoft Japan has changed its benefits to include LGBT relationships in its definition of dependents. GLEAM started in the US HQ and has now come to Japan.
Nomura has “I am an LGBT Ally” stickers up in its offices. Since acquiring Lehman Bros which had its on LGBT community, it realised it had to respond.
Shiseido participated in Tokyo Rainbow Pride in April 2015

So there is not much political pressure on Japanese companies to consider LGBT in any diversity initiatives, as there is with gender. Japanese consumers are fairly supportive, with over half saying that they would view positively a company which was supportive of LGBT people. In terms of shareholder pressure, Daniel Loeb of Third Point, an activist investor in Fanuc and Sony is a supporter of LGBT rights, and foreign shareholdings in many Japanese companies is creeping up. Indeed the Nikkei feature points out that “LGBT Is the latest management issue outside of Japan”.

Octopus balls to Tokyo – why it matters where your company is from in Japan

Most countries have rival cities – usually the official capital city versus other cities which consider themselves to be the real business, historical or cultural heart of the country – think London versus Manchester or Birmingham, Berlin versus Dusseldorf or Frankfurt, Rome versus Milan, Madrid versus Barcelona. Japan is no exception and the rivalries go way back into history.

Kyoto used to be the capital of Japan, before Tokyo (or Edo as it was then) began to usurp it in the 17th century. If you ask Japanese people today about Kyoto, they joke that Kyotoites still think Kyoto is the real capital of Japan, and the Emperor is just temporarily visiting Tokyo (he moved there in 1868, when Tokyo became the official capital) – and will return one day.

Tokyo literally means the Eastern Capital and is part of the Kanto region, where the ruling feudal Tokugawa shogunate was based from the 17th century. Kanto means East of the Barrier (usually considered to be the Hakone checkpoint) and Kansai – the region where Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto are based – means the West of the Barrier (originally the Osaka Tollgate).

Before Kyoto’s reign as capital for a 1000 years, Nara (also in the Kansai region) was the capital and seat of the Emperor but is now a quiet backwater, more visited by tourists than business people. Kobe is the other main city in the Kansai region – a port with a strongly cosmopolitan feel and very close to Osaka geographically. Whilst Kyoto remains aloof and quietly superior (and has some very successful high tech companies of its own such as Kyocera and Nidec), the real battle now in business culture is between Osaka and Tokyo.

Osakans see Tokyo as standardizing, dull and full of bureaucrats and view Osaka (which historically had very few samurai but plenty of merchants) as the real money maker, with vastly superior food. Many of Japan’s celebrities, comedians and musicians come from the Kansai region too.

So what does this mean for corporate cultures? Osaka companies often have merchant roots – the joke goes, when you meet an Osakan, you don’t ask “how are you” (ogenki desuka) but “how’s business” (moukarimakka). To which the correct response is “bochi bochi denna” – a wonderfully vague way of giving nothing away, like saying “plodding along nicely thank you”. Osaka companies are brash, tough negotiators and mean with the money. “They’d skin the fleece off a gnat” said one British engineer to me, describing his colleagues in the Osaka HQ of a consumer electronics company.

Tokyo companies are gentlemanly but at the same time highly political. You need to have a good understanding of their organisation, the factions and the individual relationships to understand how to get things done. Mitsui and Mitsubishi, both Tokyo based corporate groups, are distinguished by the saying “Mitsui is people – Mitsubishi is the organisation”. It’s hard sometimes to understand how exactly this is different, but it seems to boil down to the idea that if an individual is powerful enough at a Mitsui group company, they can get things done, whereas at a Mitsubishi group company, the whole organisation has to support an action.

The other main corporate groups, Sumitomo and Itochu, are Kansai based companies. Both have strong “mercantile” roots – Sumitomo in metals trading, hard-nut, conservative and domestically focused and Itochu – strong in fashion and consumer goods, and seen as the more maverick, progressive and international in outlook. The regional cultural differences don’t seem to have been that strong between Sumitomo and Mitsui as various mergers have taken place between their respective member companies, particularly in financial services. However regional cultural differences have definitely had an impact on Astellas Pharma, the product of a merger between Yamanouchi (Tokyo) and Fujisawa (Osaka). Apparently many Fujisawa employees were horrified that Yamanouchi was going to be the dominant partner in the merger. Fujisawa had a strong tradition of innovation and had regarded Yamanouchi as “Mane-nouchi” (Mane = imitation) – a bunch of play-safe Tokyo bureaucrats.

Those who know Japan well will have spotted that there is an important region missing from this analysis – Chubu. Literally and metaphorically this is the midlands of Japan. Just like the Midlands in the UK it is the historic heart of the car industry. Nagoya is the main city, and teased just as Birmingham in the UK is for being ugly and soullessly modern. The area has the last laugh though, as it is the most wealthy in Japan – thanks to the enduring success of Toyota (so mighty their home town was renamed Toyota City) and its corporate group of suppliers such as Denso.

So, where are the top 30 Japanese companies in Europe from?

Kanto/Tokyo based companies:

• Asahi Glass
• Astellas (but Fujisawa originally Osaka)
• Canon
• Daiichi Sankyo
• Fujifilm
• Fujitsu
• Hitachi
• Honda
• Kao Corporation
• Mitsubishi group
• Mitsui group
• Nissan
• Nomura (but was Osaka originally)
• NTT group
• NYK group
• Olympus
• Ricoh
• Sony
• Toshiba

Kansai based companies:
• Horiba (Kyoto)
• Nidec (Kyoto)
• Nippon Sheet Glass (Sumitomo Group)
• Omron (Kyoto)
• Panasonic (Osaka)
• Sharp (Osaka)
• Sumitomo group (Osaka)
• Takeda Pharma (Osaka)

Chubu based companies:
• Denso
• Seiko Epson
• Toyota

Chugoku (Hiroshima etc) based companies:

• Fast Retailing/Uniqlo

Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe 2021

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Top 3 of Japan’s “Great Place to Work” companies are not Japanese

I’ve commented before that it’s easier for Western companies to win awards that are judged on Western standards, and also that Western companies are more inclined to apply for the awards in the first place, but for what it’s worth, Google Japan has come top again on “Great Place to Work” Institute of Japan’s annual survey for 2015 along with Microsoft Japan at number 2 and American Express in third position.

Japanese companies in the top 10 are less well known outside Japan – Plan.Do.See. which is a hotel and restaurant planning and design consultancy (and offers “Party and Mice“), Works Applications (software), Disco (saws, grinders and blades manufacturer), CyberAgent (internet advertising agency).

Better known Japanese multinationals in the top 25 are Brother (12), Ryohin Keikaku (the Muji store chain – 14), Horiba (16), Nomura Research (IT consulting arm of Nomura securities – 20) and Bandai.

The criteria used in the open ended question surveys are whether the employees trust the management of the company they work for, whether they have pride in their work, and whether they feel solidarity with their colleagues.

To be a rich company director in Japan, be foreign or the founder

The cover story for the Nikkei Business magazine last month was on Japanese corporate governance, specifically focusing on what makes for effective use of outside directors (and citing Sony as a case of ineffective use of outside directors).

One of Japanese prime minister Abe’s policies for strengthening Japanese corporate governance has been to introduce a comply-or-explain regulation for any company listed on the Japanese stock markets with less than one outside director on its board. The Nikkei notes that in other countries such as the USA, UK, France and Germany, regulations are stricter, requiring comply-or-explain for boards with less than half the directors as outside directors, in most cases.

Some other statistics caught my eye:

Outside directors of listed Japanese companies who have board level experience elsewhere – 38.1%
Average time served as director – 4 years
Average salary – Y12m (not much more than US$100K)
Female directors are 6.5% (159 directors) of the total
Foreign directors are 2.9% (70 directors) of the total
They spend around 10-11 hours a month on their directorial duties

Best paid directors overall for Japanese listed companies:

Carlos Ghosn – Nissan (US$9m)
Frank Morich – Takeda Pharma (until April 1 2014) (US$9m)
Kohji Tanabe founder of U-Shin (automotive and industrial equipment) (US$7.6m)
Kazuo Okada founder of Universal Entertainment (Pachinko) (US$7.4)
Tadataka Yamada – Takeda Pharma (US$7.4m)

Other foreigners in the top 30 include Timothy Andree at Dentsu (advertising agency), Roger Barnett at Shaklee (nutritional supplements company which was majority owned by Japanese pharmaco Yamanouchi and is still listed on JASDAQ), Carsten Fischer at Shiseido and Ronald Fisher at Softbank.

Companies with the most directors earning over Y100m (US$900K) were

Mitsubishi Electric (18)
Canon (12)
FANUC (automation products) (10)
Mitsubishi Corporation (8)
Mitsui & Co (8)
Nomura (7)
Toyota (7)
Daiwa Securities (6)
Itochu (6)
Nissan (5)

We’re not going to do global business just because we want to be global – Nomura

When asked about whether Nomura’s focus on Asia was a turning away from the direction that led them to acquiring Lehman Brothers in 2008, the CEO of Nomura Holdings, Koji Nagai, responded “It’s not a reverse, just a rethink that happened two years ago. Before, we thought we wanted to be global, therefore we should do global business. Now we think about the customers’ needs first, and where we are competitive and can add value, which is why focusing on Asia makes sense.”

However he is very cautious about China, saying it resembles Japan around the time of the economic bubble bursting in 1990. Abenomics is providing a tailwind for Nomura at the moment, but as the Nikkei journalist comments, Nagai clearly still feels a strong sense of make or break, for Japan and for Nomura.

Nomura is #20 in our Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe, with around 3600 employees.

Last updated by Pernille Rudlin at 2021-10-12.

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