Merger with Iida & Co., LTD.
The government decided that the trading companies needed to be strengthened to expand the country's trade and so established a policy to strengthen them. Because the trading company Iida & Co., LTD. had sustained a large loss from the collapse of the soybean market, that company's main bank, Fuji Bank, decided that a merger with another trading company was the only way to restructure that company and so asked Marubeni to cooperate. Marubeni agreed to the merger, judging that it was in accordance with the country's policy to strengthen the trading companies, and so on September 1, 1955, Marubeni and Iida & Co., LTD. merged to form Marubeni-Iida Co., LTD.
Iida & Co., LTD., called 'Takashimaya' in Japan, was founded in Kyoto in1829 by Iida Shinshichi, a native of what is now Takashima County, Shiga Prefecture, to retail used clothing and cotton cloth. Later, the company also handled dry goods and sundries as well as concentrated on trading. In 1916, the trading division was spun off to form Iida & Co., LTD., and then in 1919 the dry goods and retail division was spun off to form Takashimaya drapery store CO., LTD., which is the forerunner of today's Takashimaya Department Store.
Just before the merger, Iida & Co., LTD. had fiscal 1955 sales of ¥31.8 billion with textiles accounting for 44% of sales and non-textiles accounting for the remaining 56% of sales. In particular, as a member of the Tookakai, a group of steel wholesalers designated by Yahata Steel and Fuji Steel, the company had a strong position in domestic steel trade. The company also held advantageous commercial supremacy for wool, leather, machinery, fuel, and other items, which were succeeded to by Marubeni-Iida through the merger, which was a major milestone in Marubeni-Iida's development into a general trading company.
In 1960, the government announced the Income Doubling Plan, which began the period of rapid economic growth and the expansion of heavy and chemical industries, such as steel, petrochemicals, synthetic textiles, and automobiles.
In line with this background, Marubeni-Iida established a chemicals department in 1957 and mediated the transfer of polyethylene production technology from the United States to Showa Denko K.K., and in 1958 actively pioneered new business fields, such as the start of automobile exports to the United States by Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., which greatly expanded the sales of machinery and other products handled by the non-textile division. This caused a decrease in the Company's ratio of sales accounted for by textiles from 65% in fiscal 1955 immediately after the merger with Iida & Co., LTD., to 50% in fiscal 1959, and then 35% in fiscal 1964.
Sales also increased from the ¥198.9 billion immediately after the merger with Iida & Co., LTD. to ¥612.7 billion in fiscal 1960 and then beyond the one trillion yen mark in fiscal 1964 to ¥1.1351 trillion. During this time new workers were actively hired, which increased the number of employees to 5,943 people as of the end of March 1965. In addition, the investment in many companies and the establishment of new companies increased the number of subsidiaries and affiliates from the original 4 at the launch of the new Marubeni to 70 companies in Japan alone. The Company's capital was increased several times so that by 1963 it reached ¥15 billion, ten times the ¥1.5 billion in 1955.
In May 1964, President Ichikawa, who had lead the Company for the 14 years since the launch of the new Marubeni, was named as chairman and Vice President Hiroshi Hiyama became president.
