Renaming to Hulic and listing on the TSE First Section (2008)

Changing the name, and acquiring a price

A change of corporate name and a listing look, from outside, like procedures for tidying up appearances. For this company, though, the meanings overlapped. The name Nihonbashi Kogyo denoted the role itself — holding the former Fuji Bank’s property in custody. Change the name and place the shares on the market, and both the payers of rent and the judges of management extend beyond the bank. That Nishiura carried out these two things in succession within less than two years of taking office lets one read a judgement that the position of bank affiliate should be ended quickly.

The timing of the listing, on the other hand, was less chosen than met. Sell shares at the bottom of a financial crisis and the proceeds fall short of what was assumed. The decision not to postpone nonetheless prepared, two years early, the capital machinery that made the mergers of 2010 and 2012 possible. Whether a company is one to which the market attaches a price is a condition that determines what it can do next, more than the quantity of funds involved. As a route by which a company born inside a bank’s group becomes independent, these two years of procedure can be seen to carry considerable weight.