Japanese company - financials public record?

[Roger Van Zant]

Are the financials of companies in Japan public record?
In the UK, I believe you can get such information from Companies House in London.
I am not sure if this is for all companies, or only companies traded on the stock exchange/companies which are PLC as opposed to LTD?

I work for a 株式会社 here in Japan, but not a big one, and we are not listed on any stock exchange.

Just wondering if I have any right to such information.

[mighty58]

Unlisted companies are not required to report their figures. Well, technically, there is a actually stipulation that 株式会社's, whether listed or not, should report their results via the 官報, but 99% of Japanese unlisted companies ignore this without penalty, so essentially you're out of luck. If you're a company looking to do a credit check, you can request third parties like Dun & Bradstreet for a report, but even those can be hit or miss with some of these small Japanese companies, and often comes down to the level of cooperation the company in question offers volutarily.

As an insider, if they are not willing to give it to you when you ask straight for it straight up, your best bet might be humint... i.e. get friendly with someone in the corporate accounting/finance division, have lunch with them regularly, or get them drunk, and slowly extract info about company performance.