Sojitz

Nichimen

Beginning around 1878, the Japanese government promoted the development of cotton spinning as an initial means of developing modern industry in Japan in the wake of the Meiji 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 established Japan Cotton Trading Co., Ltd. (日本綿花株式会社, Nippon Menka Kabushiki Kaisha) in Osaka in 1892 under the leadership of Tsuneki Sano, a 38-year-old former government official.

After the Russo-Japanese War, Nichimen expanded its business from importing. The company began cotton spinning operations in the Kwantung Leased Territory and established offices in China, Korea, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom to supply local markets. In 1910, Nichimen opened a subsidiary in Fort 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.

The Great Depression harmed Nichimen's cotton business, spurring the company's diversification beyond cotton to trade in silk, rayon and other materials. During World 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.

The largest zaibatsu trading companies were dismantled after the war, giving Nichimen an early lead among the sogo shosha in the 1950s and a six percent share of Japanese foreign trade by 1958. Nichimen became closely affiliated with Osaka-based Sanwa Bank in 1955, which financed all of Nichimen's domestic business. Nichimen was not the main trading company for the Sanwa keiretsu as that position was already held by Iwai & Co. Nichimen Jitsugyo.

By 1970, Nichimen was trading in steel, electronics, motor vehicles and fibers in addition to textiles. Nichimen served as the joint venture partner for Nabisco when it began operations in Japan in the 1970s. Nichimen Co., Ltd. changed its name to Nichimen Corporation in 1982. Nichimen, like other sogo shosha, was hit hard by the collapse of the Japanese 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.

Nissho Iwai

Nissho Iwai was formed in 1968 by the merger of Nissho Company and Iwai Sangyo Company.

Nissho Company was founded in Kobe in 1902 as Suzuki & 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 the Baltic 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 including Daicel, Nisshin Steel, Tokuyama Soda, Kansai Paint and Fuji Photo Film. It changed its name to Iwai Sangyo Company in 1943.

Both Nissho and Iwai emerged as metals and machinery trading companies after World War II but were significantly smaller than the four largest sogo shosha competitors (Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsui & Co., Itochu and Marubeni). 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 behind Sumitomo Corporation). Sanwa Bank played a role in the merger and the combined firm became the trading arm of the Sanwa Group keiretsu.

Today, the Sojitz Group consists of approximately 440 subsidiaries and affiliates located in Japan and throughout the world, and it is developing its general trading company operations in roughly 50 countries and regions across the globe.

Sojitz (through its subsidiary Sojitz Aerospace Company) is the largest seller of commercial aircraft in Japan, as it acts as a sales agent for both Boeing and Bombardier Aerospace. It distributes Mitsubishi Motors and Hyundai 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 the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor between Delhi and Mumbai in India. The Sojitz Aerospace Company also acts as Sojitz's primary arm for defense related business.

Sojitz has also invested in Hyundai Nishat, the Pakistani arm of Hyundai Motors in partnership with Nishat Group.

Sojitz owns oil and natural gas concessions in the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Qatar, Gabon, Egypt, and Brazil, and distributes nuclear fuel in Japan for Orano.

In June 2006, Sojitz acquired a 20% stake in American anime distributor ADV Films. This was done as a means of acquiring more titles in the Japanese market. 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. All the titles removed were titles acquired since the Sojitz acquisition including Gurren Lagann, which had test disks sent out with dubbed episodes. As of May 2008, Gurren Lagann was licensed by Bandai Entertainment. ADV Films made booth appearances at the Anime Central 2008 convention, but they canceled their planned panel. In July 2008, Funimation announced the acquisition of thirty of these titles.

The titles removed from ADV's website are as follows: 009-1, 5 Centimeters per Second, Ah! My Goddess: Flights of Fancy, both the film and television adaptions of the Key visual novel Air, Best Student Council, Blade of the Phantom Master, Comic Party Revolution, Coyote Ragtime Show, Devil May Cry, the 2006 live-action horror film Ghost Train, Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor, Innocent Venus, Jing King of Bandits: 7th Heaven, Jinki: Extend, the 2006 anime remake of yet another Key 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 of Utawarerumono, Venus vs. Virus, The Wallflower, Welcome to the NHK, and Xenosaga.