[Company analysis] Marubeni Corporation (丸紅)

「Marubeni Corporation (丸紅)」is general trading company with 132 bases in 67 countries around the world. This company specializes in the fields of grain, pulp, electric power, and industrial plants. In addition, it is included included in the five largest Japanese trading companies(「Mitsubishi Corporation(三菱商事)」,「Sumitomo Corporation(住友商事)」,「Mitsui & Co., Ltd.(三井物産)」,「Itochu Corporation(伊藤忠商事)」and「Marubeni Corporation(丸紅)」)　The number of consolidated employees is approximately 42,882.

 

1. Company Profile

2. Summary and Features

3. Major Business

4. Financial Information

 

 

 

1. Company Profile

 

※Unit is JPY million, as of 2019

Company name	Marubeni Corp.
Company name (Japanese)	丸紅
Date of establishment	May 1858
Headquarters location	〒103-6060 東京都中央区日本橋二丁目7番1号　東京日本橋タワー
Capital	262,686
Consolidated sales	7,401,256
Consolidated operating profit	173,009
Consolidated total assets	6,809,077
Consolidated capital	2,071,726
Capital adequacy ratio	30.4%
Consolidated number of employees	42,882

 

 

 

2. Summary and Features

 
The history of「Marubeni Corporation」goes back to May 1858, when Ito Chubei(伊藤忠兵衛) and his brother Ito Chobei(伊藤長兵衛) started door-to-door wholesaling of linen. In other words,「Marubeni Corporation」shares the same origin with「Itochu Corporation」. However, immediately after World War II,「Itochu Corporation」became the subject of conglomerate dismantling by GHQ. And as a independent company,「Marubeni Corporation」was established in 1949.

In 1955,「Marubeni」absorbed and merged with「Takashimaya-Iida(高島屋飯田)」, a trading company affiliated with「Takashimaya(高島屋)」, which had faced a management crisis. From then, this company smoothlycontinued to grow, eventually it became the one of the top 3 Japanese general trading companies, which is so called "3M(Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Marubeni)".

However, in 1976, their key officers were arrested for the "Lockheed bribery scandals" that bribed Japanese government officials to support the sale of Lockheed Martin's aircraft. In addition, As for the Japanese ODA(Official Development Assistance), their bribery to president of the Philippines was discovered in 1986. Because of such a kind of An infamous action, their brand image was critically damaged. Eventually, it was surpassed by「Sumitomo Corporation」and「Itochu Corporation」in  scale.

「Marubeni」traditionally has strengths in grain, pulp, electricity, industry, plants business. In particular, the lifestyle business accounts for 26% of Marubeni's total revenue, and the grain business has the largest share of the total revenue. The energy and metal sector follows the lifestyle industry sector. 「Marubeni」directly owns multiple mines, railways and ports, in order to export their iron ore to Asian countries. Unlike other general trading companies,「Marubeni」has tendency to concentrate on trade transactions rather than business investment.

 

 

 

3. Major Business

 

■ Living industry business
They are engaged in grain trade (feed grain, soybean, wheat, etc.), ASEAN tire distribution business, mobile phone distribution business, real estate asset management business, etc.

■Material business 
They also handle fields other than retail of agricultural materials and ethylene trading pulp and paper business.

■ Energy / Metal business
This company develops raw materials for non-ferrous metals, brokers transactions, and also engages in LNG business (Qatar, Equatorial Guinea, Papua New Guinea, Peru) and oil and gas development and production (US, UK, Russia).

■ Power Plant business
They operate overseas as an Independent Power Producer (IPP), and in addition to the electricity business, we also carry out water, oil and gas businesses, industrial plants and transportation infrastructure businesses.

■ Transportation business
They handle aircraft, automobiles, and construction machinery.

 

 

 

4. Financial information

 

※Unit is JPY million

		2016	2017	2018
Consolidated revenue		7,128,805	7,540,337	7,401,256
Consolidated operating profit		91,597	118,054	173,009
Consolidated total assets		6,896,733	6,877,117	6,809,077
Consolidated net assets		1,742,758	1,835,637	2,071,726
Breakdown of sales	Living industry business	4,068,358	401,974	346,522
	Food business	0	3,983,575	3,987,255
	Material business	1,811,006	1,753,440	1,674,204
	Energy・Metal business	660,836	705,528	789,083
	Power・Plant business	236,594	211,292	195,586
	Transportation business	361,337	491,777	417,484
	Others	-9,326	-7,249	-8,878