According to the Finance Ministry, foreign firms sank more than 4 trillion yen ($36bn; 20bn) into Japan in the 12 months to March.

The figure, which had doubled in three years, was driven by an upsurge in money coming from the US.

Japan has till now had a reputation for being hostile to foreign investment.

Its corporate structures have traditionally been set up to cement cross-shareholdings between Japanese companies, preventing hostile takeovers by either domestic or outside buyers.

Reform

Recent legal changes could make mergers easier, after Japan’s upper house of parliament on Wednesday backed a law already passed by the lower house.

But the rules still make hostile bids difficult, by easing restrictions on so-called “poison pill” defences which allow existing shareholders to buy up stock at reduced prices, thus driving off predators.

Car giant Toyota has been one firm which has said it was considering enacting a “poison pill” in case of a takeover attempt.

They have also been delayed a year, allowing for companies to take defensive measures.

Net importer

Still, the difficulties of buying businesses in Japan seems not to have dissuaded foreign investors, the Finance Ministry figures indicate.

Many Japanese firms have dropped sharply in value after a decade of finance insurance tourist zurich
recession.

The biggest draw was the finance and insurance sector, which accounted for almost 75% of the investment.

As much as half of the 1,400 trillion yen saved in Japan is sitting in accounts offering little or no interest, making for a tempting corporate estate finance finance hill in insurance irwin mcgraw principle real series
- and a demand for overseas expertise.

In contrast, Japanese investment overseas has fallen to 3.8 trillion yen - making Japan a net importer of investment for the first time since records began in 1950.

A key change was a shift in focus from the US - traditionally the most attractive destination for Japanese funds - to China, as economic ties grow and export finance and insurance
of manufacturing increases.

China attracted 491bn yen, up nearly 40% from the year before and 340% since 2000.

The US, in contrast, attracted just 503bn yen - less than half the 2003/04 figure.

The office staff here could be imitating art except that their one liners are too good to have been written by a dramatist - and what they are up to is a little more serious than selling paper in Slough.

The front runner for the role of David Brent at the offices of Yes Car Credit in Croydon is a former policeman charged with ensuring that an array of somewhat green second hand car salesmen do exactly what he wants.

At least 25 stone with a paunch, this man cuts a terrifying figure within the office.

He will not be pleased when he realises that his antics and those of his subordinates have been caught by a member of the BBC staff working undercover as a salesman.

Don’t do nice

Richard Newman worked at the branch for six weeks last summer as a so called Car Finance Advisor and secretly filmed the extravagant behaviour for BBC One’s Whistleblower.

Undercover reporter Richard Newman uncovered bad behaviour

Threatening to stamp on the staff’s mobile phones and bemoaning their apparent lack of success in boosting sales figures, the former policeman told them: “I want meetings with my area manager to be sweetness and light but how can I” before blasting his staff with obscenities.

He also told his staff that they were like “a load of” James P Sullivans from the kids film Monsters Inc.

Urging them on ever upwards, he told them that they are Automotive Ghostbusters, asking “when all else fails who are the customers going to call? We are here to make money. We don’t do nice”.

Greed and fear

The BBC filmed at Croydon after receiving a spate of complaints from Yes Car customers - over 1,000 to date - who say they have been lied to, sold expensive insurance and finance packages as well as cars that are finance insurance
and not up to scratch.

The behaviour of the staff that were filmed veered from the highly offensive to the highly questionable.

Sales staff were shown lying to customers in order to sell car finance and insurance as well as cars.

The most obvious trick was to do a pretend phone credit check, just to get the customer to come in for another appointment.

On one occasion a customer was threatened with credit blacklisting if she did not come in as planned.

Poor targets

On average, Yes added 2,000 to the recommended price of their cars. In some cases this doubled the price.

However, after taking into account the costs of finance and insurance - as well as finance for the insurance - we found people who ended up paying four times the normal cost of the car.

We found a car worth little more than 3,000 was coming in at nearly 12,000.

The customers are some of the ten million people who cannot borrow from mainstream lenders in this country.

Three est finance financial hill in insurance international irwin management mcgraw real series
brothers from Liverpool, called the Newbys, opened their first branch in Liverpool in 1997.

Five years later and they’d sold up for 141m.

The new owners, a huge public company called Provident Financial, also specialise in selling credit to poor people, aimed to rapidly expand the business.

Dangerous practice

The BBC also placed a garage inspector, Martin Woodhouse, at Croydon for three weeks posing as an mechanic.

Again the script was comedic, although this time it wasn’t just people’s finances that were being threatened but their safety.

When finance and insurance training
about the garage’s approach to servicing, the man in charge of the workshops shut his eyes and waved his hands around saying “it’s Stevie Wonder services here”.

An essential est finance hill in insurance investment irwin mcgraw real series
campaign spoke grandly of the company’s 125 point vehicle check.

However when our inspector asked a colleague about this, he merrily shrugged his shoulders and said he “just ticked anything”.

Our inspector said that there was not even the equipment to carry out the full checks.

He was told that there was only a limited budget to spend on repairing each car, most of which seemed to go on tyres and brakes.

On some occasions when he identified faults, such as leaking shock absorbers, he was told to wipe them down and try and get them through the MOT.

He was told that the company policy was not to replace cam belts even when they were way past their car finance insurance personal quote tesco
date.

Only half jokingly the chief technician told him “We don’t do perfect.”

The most startling behaviour was reserved for the clients and might go some way to explaining why some staff were happy to go along with the sales system.

One set of customers were described as “Wayne and Waynetta slob, pond life, single cell amoebas”.

Whistleblower will be broadcast on BBC One at 2100 on Wednesday 16 March 2005.