Launch of Marubeni Co., LTD.
On December 1, 1949, Marubeni Co., LTD. was established based on the commercial supremacy and employees of the old Marubeni Shoten LTD., Daido Boeki Kaisha LTD. and Kishimoto Shoten LTD. The new company was capitalized at ¥150 million, had 1,232 employees, and Shinobu Ichikawa from Marubeni Shoten was named as president. The old Marubeni Shoten building in Motomachi 3 chome, Higashi Ward, Osaka was used as the headquarters.
When established, the Company had a headquarters in Osaka, 2 branches in Tokyo, and other branches in Kobe, Kyoto, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Fukui, Kokura, and Yokohama, but not a single overseas office.
December 1, 1949, was a day to be commemorated in Japan. On that day, private companies were allowed to export, and then in January 1950 imports were liberalized.
On the day of the Company's establishment, President Ichikawa said the Company's management policy would be to build operations on the three areas of exports, imports, and domestic operations, and that the Company philosophy would be Fairness for sales and activities, Innovation for always nourishing the spirit of progress in regards to work, and Harmony for management and labor. This was the start of the Company creed of Fairness, Innovation and Harmony.
The first financial results after establishment (December 1949 to March 1950) showed sales of ¥5 billion, 80% of which were from textiles, so the Company was a textile-centered trading company.
With the start of the Korean War in June 1950, the extraordinary demand created by the war caused improving market conditions, which resulted in a rapid increase in the Company's sales to ¥50.6 billion for fiscal 1950. However, when an agreement was reached in the cease fire talks started in 1951, the markets for the three products of textiles and soy beans, rubber, and leather collapsed, causing many trading companies, including the Company, to suffered big loses, and causing the Company to ask for help from banks and spinning companies.
The Company's first overseas office was the New York office, which was established in April 1951, and then in November of the same year the Company's first overseas subsidiary, Marubeni Company (New York) Inc, was established. In 1951 other offices were established in Karachi and Portland, and these were followed in 1952 by offices in London, Singapore, Mexico, Manila, Hong Kong and others so that by the end of 1954 the Company had 22 overseas subsidiaries and opened overseas representative offices to become a true trading company.
Thereafter, as the Japanese economy expanded, the Company's sales grew to where in 1953 sales reached ¥134.9 billion, surpassing the ¥100 billion mark. As the Company's operations expanded its capital was increased until it reached ¥1.5 billion in February 1955.
