Mitsui

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This article is about the Mitsui Group. For other uses of the name "Mitsui", see Mitsui (disambiguation).

Mitsui Group
三井グループ
Company typeKeiretsu
Founded1876; 148 years ago (1876)
(foundation of Mitsui & Co.)
FounderMitsui Takatoshi
Headquarters
Japan Edit this on Wikidata
Area served
Worldwide
ProductsFood and beverage, industrial products
ServicesFinancial services, real estate, retail, shipping, and logistics
Websitewww.mitsui.com/jp/en/index.html Edit this on Wikidata

Mitsui Group (三井グループ, Mitsui Gurūpu) is a Japanese corporate group and keiretsu that traces its roots to the zaibatsu groups that were dissolved after World War II. Unlike the zaibatsu of the pre-war period, there is no controlling company with regulatory power. Instead, the companies in the group hold shares in each other, but they are limited to exchanging information and coordinating plans through regular meetings.

The major companies of the group include Mitsui & Co. (general trading company), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Nippon Paper Industries, Pokka Sapporo Holdings, Toray Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Mitsui Fudosan.[1]

History

Edo period origins

The Chuo Mitsui Trust and Banking Co. and Mitsui Memorial Museum, is located on the right side of the street. Mitsukoshi
department store is on the left side.

Founded by

pawn shop business. The family would later open a second shop in Edo (modern Tokyo
).

Takatoshi moved to

nengō
meaning "Prolonged Wealth".

In time, the gofukuya division separated from Mitsui, and became Mitsukoshi. Traditionally, gofukuyas provided products made to order; a visit was made to the customer's house (typically a person of high social class or who was successful in business), an order taken, then fulfilled. The system of accountancy was called "margin transaction". Mitsui changed this by producing products first, then selling them directly at his shop for cash. This was then an unfamiliar mode of operation in Japan. Even as the shop began providing dry goods to the government of the city of Edo, cash sales were not yet a widespread business practice.

Edo's government had struck a business deal with Osaka. Osaka would sell crops and other material to pay its land tax. The money was then sent to Edo—but moving money was dangerous in middle feudal Japan. In 1683, the shogunate granted permission for money exchanges (ryōgaeten) to be established in Edo.[4] The Mitsui "exchange shops" facilitated transfers while mitigating risks.

Formation of Mitsui zaibatsu

After the

Sumitomo were led by non-family managers such as Minomura Rizaemon, who guided the business by accurately forecasting the coming political and economic situations, by acquaintance with high-ranking government officials or politicians, and bold investment.[5]

Mitsui's main business in the early period was drapery, finance, and trade, the first two being the businesses it inherited from the Tokugawa Era. It entered into mining when it acquired a mine as collateral from a loan it had made, partly because it could buy a mine cheaply from the government, Mitsui then diversified to become the biggest business in pre-war Japan. The diversification was mainly into related fields to take advantage of accumulated capabilities; for instance, the trading company entered into chemicals to attain forward integration.[6]

Takashi Masuda

On July 1, 1876, Mitsui Bank, Japan's first private bank, was founded with

Sakura Bank, survives as part of the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. During the early 20th century, Mitsui was one of the largest zaibatsu
, operating in numerous fields.

Mitsui Bank became the holding company of the Mitsui zaibatsu from 1876. It was joined as an ultimate parent company by Mitsui & Co. and Mitsui Mining in 1900, with various industrial concerns owned by various combinations of these companies and their subsidiaries.[7]

Likewise, Mitsui invested in maritime transportation to support its trading activities as well as invest in passenger transportation, first with the creation in 1878, of Osaka Shosen Kaisha (OSK), which was merged with Mitsui Steamship in 1964, to become

Mitsui OSK Lines
(MOL), which became one of the largest ocean shipping groups in the world.

When the

Takuma Dan.[7]

World War II

During the 1930s and '40s, the subsidiary tobacco industry of Mitsui had started production of special

war crimes before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, sentenced to death; but no actions ever took place against the company which profited from their production. According to testimony presented at the Tokyo War Crimes trials in 1948, the revenue from the narcotization policy in China, including Manchukuo, was estimated in 20 million to 30 million yen per year, while another authority stated that the annual revenue was estimated by the Japanese military at US$300 million a year.[8][9]

During the

Second World War, Mitsui employed American prisoners of war as slave laborers, some of whom were maimed by Mitsui employees.[10]

Postwar development as keiretsu

In 1947 and 1948, the

Supreme Commander Allied Powers pressed the Japanese government to dismantle the ten largest zaibatsu conglomerates, including Mitsui. The Mitsui Group, broken into many separate companies, reorganized itself as a horizontal coalition of independent companies in the 1950s, once the occupation of Japan had ended and some of the smaller companies were allowed to re-coalesce. The central firms in the keiretsu became Mitsui Bank and Mitsui & Co.[7]

Mitsui lagged somewhat behind its rivals

Toyota Motors, and Suntory
, once part of the Mitsui Group, became independent, with the Toyota Group becoming a conglomerate in its own right.

In 2000, Mitsui Pharmaceuticals was acquired by the German Schering AG from Berlin.[11]

Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries (

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ
, to form Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings in April 2008.

Makeup of the Mitsui Group

Companies associated with the Mitsui keiretsu include

Mitsui Oil Exploration Co. (MOECO), Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Mitsui Petrochemical Industries Ltd, Mitsui-Soko, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group, Nippon Paper Industries, Pacific Coast Recycling, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Taiheiyo Cement, TBS Holdings, Toray Industries
, Tri-net Logistics Management, and Mitsui Commodity Risk Management (MCRM).

Mitsui companies in the Nikkei 225

Companies with close ties to Mitsui

See also

Citations

  1. ^ "Member Companies". Mitsui Public Relations Committee. Archived from the original on 30 January 2015. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  2. ^ Ríkarðsson, Árni (2020). Origins of the Zaibatsu conglomerates. Bachelor's thesis. Supervisor: Kristín Ingvarsdóttir. Reykjavik, University of Iceland, p. 15.
  3. ^ Hall, John. (1970). Japan: From Prehistory to Modern Times, p. 290.
  4. ^ Shinjō, Hiroshi. (1962). History of the Yen: 100 Years of Japanese Money-economy, p. 11.
  5. ISBN 0-19-828802-6
    .
  6. ISBN 0-19-828802-6
    .
  7. ^ a b c Grabowiecki, Jerzy (March 2006). "Keiretsu groups: their role in the Japanese economy and a reference point (or paradigm) for other countries" (PDF). JETRO. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 August 2014. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  8. ISBN 978-0-8348-0080-9
    , pp. 312–313.
  9. ISBN 978-0-385-01609-4
    , Doubleday, 1974
  10. ^ Unfinished Business, Foreign Policy, June 28, 2010
    Pennington, Matthew (25 April 2015). "'The truth needs to be told' about Japan's war history, some vets say". Stars and Stripes. United States. Associated Press. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  11. ^ Chemie-Geschichte: Chemische Fabrik E. Schering

General sources

External links
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