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 Headquarters inUchisaiwaichō,Chiyoda, Tokyo | |
Native name | 双日株式会社 |
|---|---|
Romanized name | Sōjitsu kabushiki gaisha |
| Company type | Public |
| TYO:2768 | |
| Industry | Conglomerate (Sogo shosha) |
| Founded | August 2004; 21 years ago (2004-08) |
| Headquarters | Chiyoda,Tokyo, Japan |
Key people | Masayoshi Fujimoto (president & CEO) |
| Revenue |  JP¥4,006 billion (2016) |
| JP¥36.5 billion (2016) | |
Number of employees | 14,330 (2016) |
| Website | www |
Sojitz Corporation (Japanese:双日株式会社,Hepburn:Sōjitsu Kabushiki-gaisha) is asogo shosha (general trading company) based inTokyo, Japan. It is engaged in a wide range of businesses globally, including buying, selling, importing, and exporting goods, manufacturing and selling products, providing services, and planning and coordinatingprojects, in Japan and overseas. Sojitz alsoinvests in various sectors and conducts financing activities. The broad range of sectors in which Sojitz operates includesautomobiles,energy,mineral resources,chemicals, foodstuff resources, agricultural and forestry resources, consumer goods, andindustrial parks.
Sojitz was formed in 2004 by themerger ofNissho Iwai Corporation (日商岩井株式会社,Nisshō Iwai Kabushiki-gaisha) andNichimen Corporation (ニチメン株式会社,Nichimen Kabushiki-gaisha).[1] The name "Sojitz" is derived from the names of Nissho Iwai and Nichimen, both of which include the character "日" (sun). "Sojitz", literally meaning "twin suns", implies a merger of equals between the two companies. The corporate logo is a stylized version of the first character in its Japanese name.
Beginning around 1878, the Japanese government promoted the development ofcotton spinning as an initial means of developing modern industry in Japan in the wake of theMeiji Restoration. Japan's native raw cotton supply proved inadequate to meet demand, and there was only one Japanese importer of raw cotton at the time, making the industry highly reliant on foreign merchants. To improve this situation, a group of spinning companies establishedJapan Cotton Trading Co., Ltd. (日本綿花株式会社,Nippon Menka Kabushiki Kaisha) inOsaka in 1892 under the leadership of Tsuneki Sano, a 38-year-old former government official.[2]
After theRusso-Japanese War, Nichimen expanded its business from importing. The company began cotton spinning operations in theKwantung Leased Territory and established offices in China, Korea, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom to supply local markets. In 1910, Nichimen opened a subsidiary inFort Worth, Texas to enter the raw cotton trade in the United States.World War I strained cotton supply in Europe, boosting Nichimen's international business further. In the late 1910s the company expanded into South America and Africa, trading in cotton as well as wool, food products, and machinery.
TheGreat Depression harmed Nichimen's cotton business, spurring the company's diversification beyond cotton to trade in silk, rayon and other materials. DuringWorld War II, Nichimen was tapped by the Japanese military to manage production of flour, matches and starch. The company changed its name to Nichimen Enterprise (Nichimen Jitsugyo) in 1943 to reflect its more diverse business.[3]
The largestzaibatsu trading companies were dismantled after the war, giving Nichimen an early lead among thesogo shosha in the 1950s and a six percent share of Japanese foreign trade by 1958. Nichimen became closely affiliated with Osaka-basedSanwa Bank in 1955, which financed all of Nichimen's domestic business. Nichimen was not the main trading company for the Sanwakeiretsu as that position was already held by Iwai & Co. Nichimen Jitsugyo.[3]
By 1970, Nichimen was trading in steel, electronics, motor vehicles and fibers in addition to textiles. Nichimen served as the joint venture partner forNabisco when it began operations in Japan in the 1970s. Nichimen Co., Ltd. changed its name toNichimen Corporation in 1982. Nichimen, like othersogo shosha, was hit hard by the collapse of theJapanese asset price bubble in the early 1990s, and subsequently made a strategic shift from the "soft" businesses of lumber, food, and chemicals trading to the "hard" businesses of machinery, steel, and construction.[3]
Nissho Iwai was formed in 1968 by the merger of Nissho Company and Iwai Sangyo Company.[4]
Nissho Company was founded inKobe in 1902 asSuzuki & Company (ja:鈴木商店) under the leadership of Naokichi Kaneko (ja:金子直吉) when died this company's predecessor shop's founder, Iwajiro Suzuki (ja:鈴木岩治郎) (1837–1894). Suzuki was originally a sugar trading firm but later diversified into flour, steel, tobacco, beer, insurance, shipping and shipbuilding; it became the second Japanese member of theBaltic Exchange in London.Iwai & Company (ja:岩井商店) was founded as a steel trading firm in 1901 and established a number of prominent group enterprises includingDaicel, Nisshin Steel, Tokuyama Soda,Kansai Paint andFuji Photo Film. It changed its name to Iwai Sangyo Company in 1943.[4]
Both Nissho and Iwai emerged as metals and machinery trading companies after World War II but were significantly smaller than the four largestsogo shosha competitors (Mitsubishi Corporation,Mitsui & Co.,Itochu andMarubeni). Iwai was poorly managed after the war and was on the brink of failure in the early 1960s, while Nissho was profitable and successfully expanding overseas. The Japanese government directed the merger of the two companies in 1968, forming the fifth largest trading company in Japan (falling back to sixth place in 1972 behindSumitomo Corporation).[5]Sanwa Bank played a role in the merger and the combined firm became the trading arm of theSanwa Groupkeiretsu.[6]
Nissho Iwai was involved in acorruption scandal in 1979 after it passed on a 500 million yen bribe fromMcDonnell Douglas to the director general of theJapan Defense Agency in an attempt to influence the sale ofF-4 Phantom aircraft to theJapan Air Self-Defense Force. In the wake of the scandal, one Nissho Iwai executive committed suicide by jumping from the company's headquarters building. The scandal was uncovered only three years after a similar scandal involvingLockheed andMarubeni conspiring to bribe Prime MinisterKakuei Tanaka.[7]
In subsequent years, the company had a strong focus onliquefied natural gas andsteel trading, as well as industrial project development.[5]
Nichimen and Nissho Iwai consolidated on a holding company level in 2003 and consolidated their operating units in 2004, adopting theSojitz name at that time. The merged holding company,Sojitz Holdings, combined with the merged operating company,Sojitz Corporation, in 2005.[1]
Today,[when?] the Sojitz Group consists of approximately 440subsidiaries andaffiliates located in Japan and throughout the world, and it is developing its wide-ranging general trading company operations in roughly 50 countries and regions across the globe.
Sojitz (through its subsidiarySojitz Aerospace Company) is the largest seller of commercial aircraft in Japan, as it acts as a sales agent for bothBoeing andBombardier Aerospace. It distributesMitsubishi Motors andHyundai Motors automobiles in various countries, and also develops and operates power plants, industrial plants in various countries. In 2013 it received an order to develop a section of theWestern Dedicated Freight Corridor betweenDelhi andMumbai in India.[8] The Sojitz Aerospace Company also acts as Sojitz's primary arm for defense related business.
Sojitz has also invested in Hyundai Nishat, thePakistani arm ofHyundai Motors in partnership withNishat Group.
Sojitz owns oil and natural gas concessions in theNorth Sea,Gulf of Mexico,Qatar,Gabon, Egypt, and Brazil,[citation needed] and distributesnuclear fuel in Japan forOrano.[9]
Its operations in the chemicals sector includemethanol production inIndonesia,barite mining inMexico andindustrial salt trading in various markets worldwide.[10] In November 2010, it signed an agreement with the Australianrare earths mining companyLynas to import $350 million worth of rare earth minerals from Lynas' mine inMount Weld, Australia.[11]
Its consumer business operations include trading in grains, feed, sugar, coffee, fish, wood and paper. It owns the Japanese rights to several consumer brands such asEastpak and McGregor.[12]
Sojitz Blue Pty Ltd is an Australian subsidiary of Sojitz Corporation, established in 2002.[13] Sojitz Blue acquired mining interest in the Queensland mining region at Minerva coal mine in 2005[14] (which was closed in 2021[15]), and subsequently acquired Meteor Downs South andGregory Crinum[14] in 2019.[16]
In October 2025, Sojitz signed up to arare earths deal struck between the United States and Australia, which includes the expansion of anAlcoa facility inWagerup,Western Australia, to include a processing facility forgallium known as the Gallium Recovery Project.[17] Sojitz will be funding half of the project.[18]
In June 2006, Sojitz acquired a 20% stake inAmerican anime distributorADV Films. This was done as a means of acquiring more titles in the Japanese market.[19] From this point on, virtually all titles that ADV acquired were under Sojitz's ownership. However, in January 2008, ADV mysteriously removed a large number of titles from their website.[20] All the titles removed were titles acquired since the Sojitz acquisition includingGurren Lagann, which had test disks sent out with dubbed episodes. As of May 2008,Gurren Lagann was licensed byBandai Entertainment. ADV Films made booth appearances at theAnime Central 2008 convention, but they canceled their planned panel.[21] In July 2008,Funimation announced the acquisition of thirty of these titles.[22]
The titles removed from ADV's website are as follows:009-1,5 Centimeters per Second,Ah! My Goddess: Flights of Fancy, both thefilm andtelevision adaptions of theKey visual novelAir,Best Student Council,Blade of the Phantom Master,Comic Party Revolution,Coyote Ragtime Show,Devil May Cry, the 2006 live-action horror filmGhost Train,Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor,Innocent Venus,Jing King of Bandits: 7th Heaven,Jinki: Extend, the 2006 anime remake of yet anotherKey visual novel,Kanon,Kurau: Phantom Memory,Le Chevalier D'Eon,Magikano,Moeyo Ken,Moonlight Mile,Nerima Daikon Brothers,Pani Poni Dash!,Project Blue Earth SOS,Pumpkin Scissors,Red Garden,Tokyo Majin,UFO Princess Valkyrie, the first anime ofUtawarerumono,Venus vs. Virus,The Wallflower,Welcome to the NHK, andXenosaga.
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