The end result of one-man management is a series of ugly stories… Former Big Motor President Kaneshige and his son “have a huge mansion and abusive line to their employees.

The number of customers has decreased dramatically. We used to get about 10 sales contracts a day on weekends, but now we get three to four. Now there are three to four. In some of the worst cases, there are no contracts at all. It has been three weeks since the fraud became public, but we have not received any notice from the head office to change the quota. I am beyond angry and dismayed that they are still seeking profits at this late stage.

Even before the third-party committee submitted its investigation report on June 26, FRIDAY had been pursuing numerous allegations of fraud. The May 5 issue of FRIDAY reported that the current factory manager had instructed a customer how to make a hole in the customer’s tire and charged the customer an illegal labor fee. The May 26 issue also reported allegations that the company had covered up a customer’s car that had burst into flames due to a mishandled operation.

Home (Meguro-ku, Tokyo)
Estimated value: 6 billion yen

On July 25, Big Motor, which had remained silent, held a press conference. Hiroyuki Kaneshige, 71, announced his resignation as president,

He denied his involvement, saying, “The sheet metal painting division was solely responsible for the fraudulent billing issue, and the rest of the management was unaware of it.

He denied his own involvement. However, on July 26, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism held a hearing, and the Financial Services Agency is also conducting an investigation into the non-life insurance company.

What was behind the rampant fraud? The biggest factor is the strong top-down management by the founder, Hiroyuki, and his son, Koichi (35), the former vice president. Originally, Big Motor was established by Hiroyuki in his lifetime, and under his strong leadership, the company has continued to grow rapidly.

A former employee who has experience as a store manager in the eastern Japan area reveals, “I joined the company about 10 years ago.

I joined the company about 10 years ago, but the former president was very strict about numbers even back then, and it was common practice to demote employees if they did not produce results. At the beginning of the new year, all the stores were sent a maxim, ‘Numbers are personalities,’ and we were instructed to ‘print it out in A3 size, put it in a frame, and display it! I was instructed to print it out in A3 size, put it in a frame, and hang it up.

However, the former president also had a strong work ethic, driving his own car and energetically conducting inspections called “environmental maintenance inspections. It is also true that there were people who wanted to follow him.

A Son Who Privatized Personnel Power

Then, there was an incident that led to a major shift toward “profit supremacy. In 2003, Koichi became a director.

Around that time, aggressive quotas began to be imposed, for example, to make a profit of 140,000 yen per car to be repaired using insurance. In order to meet the excessive demands, my store also had to break headlights with a hammer and sell submerged cars under the guise of ordinary used cars,” said the former manager.

Environmental maintenance inspections have also changed. Another mid-level employee in the sales department revealed.

Another mid-career employee in the sales department revealed, “Koichi’s moods have led to transfers and demotions. For example, during environmental maintenance inspections, if there was even one weed growing around the store, it was not allowed. We would get a call for a leftward transfer based on the same criteria as if we were trying to make a difficult situation worse. We called this ‘judging. There was a manager who was ‘judged’ five minutes after the environmental maintenance inspection was over. Everyone acted with only Koichi’s good mood in mind. That was the norm.

According to the report compiled by the third-party committee, at least 47 store managers were demoted in the three years from 2008 alone. Furthermore, it seems that harassment was also a regular occurrence. See the line image below. This is part of an exchange between Koichi and executives that FRIDAY obtained. Koichi uses the word “death penalty” and unilaterally hurls abusive language at them. The executives can only apologize flatly.

We sent a letter of inquiry to Big Motor regarding the authenticity of this exchange, but received no concrete response other than to repeat, “We are responding to inquiries in due course.

Koichi had the final say in all personnel matters. And he was using that authority for personal use. When I was manager, I once went to a cabaret club with Mr. Koichi and several executives. But Koichi’s attitude toward the girls was so bad that I couldn’t bear to see him and left the restaurant before him.

The next day, Koichi gave me a hard time. In the end I was not demoted, but the boss who covered for me was moved to the left. Such things were commonplace,” said a former employee who had worked as a block manager in the Chubu region.

Big Motor privatizes personnel rights and forces excessive quotas on its employees. On the other hand, Big Motor continued to improve its business performance. Last year, the company’s annual sales exceeded 520 billion yen and it now employs 6,000 people.

With this growth came changes in the lives of Kaneshige and his son. The home in an upscale residential area of Meguro-ku, Tokyo, completed in 2008, is a fortress-like mansion with two floors above ground and one below on a sprawling site of more than 470 tsubo. It is a mansion with a tea ceremony room and a fountain, and the total estimated value of the land and buildings is not less than 6 billion yen.

In 2004, he built a villa in Karuizawa (Nagano Prefecture), which boasts an area of 950 tsubo. He also purchased an adjoining plot of land of 1,600 tsubo, and construction of a new residence is underway.

In 2009, a two-story building with a basement was completed in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, on a 560-tsubo plot of land overlooking the sea. Although nominally a recreation facility, it is owned by Big Asset, an asset management company in which Kaneshige and his son are the only directors, and is used as a vacation home for the Kaneshige family. The marina below the villa, which is also owned by the same asset management company, has a large cruiser and yacht docked there.