Edo period origins '', by
Hiroshige, depicting the Echigoya kimono and money exchange store with
Mount Fuji in background. Currently, the
Mitsui Main Building (三井本館), which houses
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Mitsui Fudosan,
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
Mitsui Takatoshi (1622–1694), who was the fourth son of a shopkeeper in
Matsusaka, in what became
Mie prefecture. From his shop, called Echigoya (越後屋), Mitsui Takatoshi's father originally sold
miso and ran a
pawn shop. The family would later open a second shop in
Edo (modern
Tokyo). Takatoshi moved to Edo when he was 14 years old, and later his older brother joined him. Sent back to Matsusaka by his brother, Takatoshi waited for 24 years until his older brother died before he could take over the family shop, Echigoya. He opened a new branch in 1673; a large
gofukuya (
kimono shop) in
Nihonbashi, a district in the heart of Edo. The genesis of Mitsui's business was in the
Enpō era, which was a
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. The Mitsui "exchange shops" facilitated transfers while mitigating risks.
Formation of Mitsui zaibatsu After the
Meiji Restoration, Mitsui was among the enterprises that were able to expand to become
zaibatsu not simply because they were already big and rich at the start of modern industrial development. Firms like Mitsui and
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. Mitsui's main business in the early period was drapery, finance, and trade, the first two being the businesses it inherited from the
Edo period. 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. On July 1, 1876, Mitsui Bank, Japan's first private bank, was founded with
Masuda Takashi (1848–1938) as its president. Mitsui Bank, which following a merger with Taiyō-Kobe Bank in the mid-1980s became part of
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. 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
United Kingdom withdrew from the
gold standard in 1931, during the height of the
Great Depression, Mitsui Bank and Mitsui & Co. were found to have speculated around the transaction. This raised a political furor in Japan and resulted in the assassination of Mitsui executive
Dan Takuma.
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. Mitsui lagged somewhat behind its rivals
Mitsubishi and
Sumitomo Group in reorganization. Mitsui Bank, which should have been the mainstay and principal capital provider of the group, declined in size due to the collapse of the
Imperial Bank after the war, which resulted in reduced cohesion of the conglomerate. Many companies that were once part of the Mitsui Group have become independent or tied to other conglomerates. Specifically,
Toshiba,
Toyota and
Suntory, once part of the Mitsui Group, became independent, with the Toyota Group becoming a conglomerate in its own right. Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries (
IHI Corporation) is now considered to be part of the
Mizuho Group, and many companies in the
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group are more closely tied to the
Sumitomo Group than the Mitsui Group. there were signs that
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and the
Mitsubishi Group could be taking over other parts of the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group. Mitsukoshi merged into
Isetan, a major department store with close ties to the
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, to form Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings in April 2008. ==Makeup of the Mitsui Group==