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Chapter 53 – The Ootori Group (Corporate Group) (2)

“Now then, we will hold the first ‘Hououkai.’ Cheers!”

“Cheers!!”

At the command of Uncle Zenkichi, hundreds of men raise their cups.

On a certain day in April, the presidents belonging to the Ootori Group, gathered as much as possible—representing the Ootori financial conglomerate and Suzuki Shoten—assembled again in the hall of the Imperial Hotel they rented this time.

The ‘Hououkai’ this time is irregular, with plans to decide the official timing, scale, and other details by next year.
The purpose of the meeting on this day is simply to have everyone meet face-to-face as soon as possible.

So, while eating, the representatives talk briefly and exchange business cards.
After all, many don’t really understand what will be done or how from now on.

The explanation cannot be completed or understood in just one meeting.

This isn’t a real face-to-face meeting, nor can it be called a social gathering or a presidents’ conference.
There’s no need for it to be flashy, so there’s no reason for me to take part. 

I only heard about it later from my great-grandfather.

By the way, on April 1, the Ootori Group was officially launched.
Then, a large-scale organizational restructuring and consolidation of companies would be energetically carried out.

At its core is a major consolidation and abolition of unprofitable divisions within the Suzuki Shoten group.

Regardless of business performance, for strengthening competitiveness, Ootori will either acquire or consolidate the finance, petroleum, and heavy industries.

Especially in finance, since Suzuki still didn’t even have an institutional bank, without any excuse, all the small financial organizations they barely had were absorbed by Ootori, and their names were not preserved.

Regarding petroleum and the chemical industries related to petroleum, Ootori holds the North Karafuto oil field and succeeded in exploratory drilling at the Ryoga oil field, so Ootori will unify them under its control due to overwhelming superiority.

Suzuki’s group includes Asahi Petroleum, but Asahi Petroleum later became Showa Shell.
If it merges under Idemitsu, it’s just an advancement of the schedule in a sense.

With this, Ootori becomes Japan’s largest petroleum-related company.
If development of the Ryoga oil field progresses, becoming Japan’s Standard Oil is not a dream.

Because the Navy was delighted with the success of exploratory drilling at the Ryoga oil field, political obstacles are unlikely to interfere, so the plan will be pushed forward.
On the other hand, many of the companies Suzuki Shoten rapidly expanded by merging around the time of World War I will become Ootori’s in exchange for Ootori taking on a large amount of bad debt.
However, there was an agreement to leave untouched as much as possible the long-established companies in the Suzuki group and those highly loyal to Suzuki.
In particular, some of the trading company functions Suzuki had as its main business, core companies in sugar production, synthetic ammonia, and chemical industries, and also food-related companies will remain with Suzuki.

In short, Ootori and Suzuki took charge of their respective specialties and established a clear division of roles.

And naturally, the name Suzuki Shoten remains.
Although it no longer holds the top position, if it had gone bankrupt or been absorbed by another financial conglomerate, its name probably wouldn’t have survived. 

Alternatively, the name might remain, but the organization would be nothing more than an empty shell of a financial conglomerate.

One exception in this situation is Kobe Steel Works.

It is the flagship of Suzuki’s industrial division.
Also, since it is regarded as a private factory nurtured by the Navy, it possesses advanced technical capabilities.

As of 1927, it wasn’t yet a steel mill, but it was producing steel pipes and rods.
This was a company necessary to have as much in-house as possible for oil field development.

On the other hand, the steel mill itself had been planned within the Ootori financial conglomerate even before the decision for Ootori to absorb Suzuki.
However, since the plan was still underway and only a preparatory company existed, it couldn’t simply be merged into one.

What’s needed now is not a steel mill, but high-quality steel pipes and rods.
Therefore, they didn’t want to cause confusion within the company.

So instead of having either Ootori or Suzuki take full control, Suzuki operates it, and Ootori manages it from above.

After all, at the Ryoga oil field, they need to extract up to 12 million tons of oil annually from deep underground.
Moreover, in my plan, an even larger oil field development awaits within ten years.

That’s why high-quality steel pipes are needed now, and in the future, no matter how many there are, it will never be enough.
Buying these from elsewhere would be a nightmare.

Also, Harima Shipbuilding, which had been attached to Kobe Steel, was separated and increased capital directly under Ootori’s control.

Kobe Steel Works was focused on steel manufacturing, and if necessary, they planned to build an integrated steel mill here well ahead of the actual historical schedule.

Another exception is Kokusai Kisen (International Steamship).

This company is a kind of national policy company, but it was stronger in private-sector power than other large Japanese shipping companies like Nippon Yusen and Osaka Shosen.
Suzuki was one of the major shareholders.

However, Kokusai Kisen itself was a newcomer and could hardly be called financially stable.
So, the Ootori financial conglomerate merged in Ootori Shosen, which it controlled, and further increased capital.
Originally, Suzuki held 16.8% of the 80 million yen capital, but this was changed so that Ootori held one-third.

Ootori had no shipbuilding company, but Suzuki had Harima Shipyard, which became a direct vassal of Ootori.
They arranged whatever was needed to build as large tankers as possible and pushed them hard to build many tankers.

Also, to Kawasaki Heavy Industries, a major shareholder of Kokusai Kisen, when they were not building warships, they made large tankers at the big shipyard in Kobe in the same way.

This also advanced the relationship with the Kawasaki financial conglomerate.
In fact, Kawasaki, which had been struggling, was quite pleased.

At first, there was skepticism that Japan didn’t have that much demand for oil.
However, since this was a long-term plan to increase demand itself, they decided to build ships a bit forcefully to avoid trouble later.

In this series of moves, Japanese shipbuilding companies and shipping companies like Nippon Yusen and Osaka Shosen didn’t look too pleased, but because the Navy fully backed Ootori regarding the oil fields and tankers, they were able to push the plan forward sufficiently.

On the other hand, what made me personally happy was that Suzuki owned textile and spinning companies like Teijin, and also had plenty of food-related companies such as Nippon Flour Mills, Teikoku Brewery, and Nen Oil.

Until now, the Ootori financial conglomerate’s scale was somewhat mediocre, so it could only reach into limited fields.
But with this, they could suddenly expand into many industrial sectors all at once.

Among these, I focused on Daiichi Chisso Kogyo (First Nitrogen Industry).

Regarding nitrogen—that is, chemical fertilizers (ammonium sulfate)—Japan relied heavily on imports from chemically advanced countries like Germany.
Breaking away from that and fully covering domestic production would lead to agricultural production expansion and prevent foreign currency outflow.

Also, petrochemicals (more precisely, various gases; in the case of petroleum, naphtha is used) are involved in the production of ammonia, the raw material, so the compatibility with Ootori, which became a major oil company, is not bad.

It’s definitely not that they were thinking about converting this to gunpowder production in case of emergency. Rather, they didn’t want to make explosives at all.

That aside, Suzuki Shoten had just established the company and factory here, so it was easy to handle.
Initially, the plan was to leave it with Suzuki but expand its scale significantly with investment from Ootori.

However, Suzuki ended up offering it as a human sacrifice to Ootori.

According to my great-grandfather and Zenkichi, this was one of the wedges Kaneko drove into Ootori.

They both smiled wryly, saying there was no room for carelessness or mistakes.