Mitsui builds strong local partnerships for global gain
Discovery Reports
From its roots as a trading firm in Meiji-era Japan, Mitsui & Co knows the immense value of harnessing the right partnerships. A conglomerate worth roughly HK$850 billion, with close to 600 operating companies, Mitsui creates opportunities in many different localities, adding value worldwide and contributing to the global good.
Investing in light and heavy industries since the 1930s, Mitsui has fuelled the growth of economies in Japan and around the world with stable supplies of energy and resources. Mitsui's transformation into an industrial solutions provider in the 1960s helped it advance in a broad base of hi-tech fields. Through its investments, Mitsui has also addressed universal food, health care and environmental concerns.
"We don't put limits to what we do," says Yuji Murakami, deputy chief operating officer of Mitsui Asia-Pacific and general manager of the Singapore branch. "Mitsui aims to contribute to the society of each country we're in so it is critical to develop strong local partnerships and create solutions together."
Through its trading partnerships, Mitsui establishes expertise in the particular business and mutual trust within the companies' managements before making an investment. Such investments benefit from Mitsui's long-established value chain that encompasses marketing, financing, logistics, risk management, information technology and process development capabilities. Functioning across Mitsui's diverse business segments, this value chain lends stability to any core business and amplifies opportunities for expansion on a global scale.
A case in point is IHH Healthcare, the largest private hospital group in Asia, in which Mitsui has a 20.3 per cent stake as of May this year. IHH operates the Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital (MNH), the first state-of-the-art medical facility built in Singapore in more than 30 years.
Mitsui has tapped a team of Japan's leading living donor liver transplant surgeons for the Sing-Kobe Liver Transplant Centre at MNH as part of a cross-cultural collaboration to cater to the increasing needs of advanced medical treatment in Asia. The move also contributes towards the globalisation of Japan's high-quality health care services.