Nitto Boseki - Company History

Founded from the merger of Koriyama Kenshi Boseki and Fukushima Seiren Seishi

Nitto Boseki’s prehistory runs back to two companies: Koriyama Kenshi Boseki, established in Koriyama in February 1898[1], and Fukushima Seiren Seishi — later Fukushima Boshoku[2] — established in the city of Fukushima in April 1918[3]. Both were silk-spinning firms based in Fukushima prefecture, typical of the provincial spinning industry of the late Meiji and Taisho years. In April 1923 the two were combined, in the form of Fukushima Boshoku acquiring the Iwashiro spinning works of Katakura Seishi Boseki (the former Koriyama Kenshi Boseki), and the trading name was changed to Nitto Boseki Co., Ltd.[4] Founded in that way as a Fukushima-born spinning company out of the merger of two silk spinners within the prefecture, it still — more than a century after its establishment — keeps its principal production sites in Fukushima prefecture, at Fukushima and Koriyama, at the core of the business.

Katakura Sanpei (片倉三平) took office as the first president. He did not confine the company to the silk spinning it had come from: he led its entry into the most advanced materials of the day — the chemical fibres rayon and staple fibre, and glass fibre — and diversified the management of Nitto Boseki. In November 1936 the Fukuyama plant was newly built in Koriyama, Fukushima prefecture[5], and in March 1937 mass production of rayon staple began there[6]. In September 1937 a weaving and dyeing plant was built at Itami in Hyogo prefecture[7], and in October the company merged Nagoya Boseki[8] (the Koriyama silk plant, the Koriyama plant, the Nagoya plant and the Niigata plant), acquiring the Niigata plant and entering cotton spinning at that point[9]. With this it expanded to a scale holding a group of plants spread across Fukushima, Aichi, Niigata and Hyogo.

Through the prewar years from 1923 to 1944, Nitto Boseki began to shed the skin of a mere silk spinner and become an integrated materials maker built around textile raw materials. In January 1942 it merged Tomari Boseki of Toyama prefecture[10], and in February 1944 it bought the Kainan and Hiro plants in Wakayama prefecture from Toyota Motor (the former Chuo Boseki)[11]. Amid the corporate consolidation of the Pacific War the company continued to expand, merging Shoko Boseki, Nitto Keito and Tomari Boseki[12], and in February 1944 it changed its name to Nitto Jo Kogyo (日東城工業), returning to Nitto Boseki Co., Ltd. in May 1946 after the war[13]. As mergers and consolidations swept the textile companies under the wartime controlled economy, Nitto Boseki assembled a plant network straddling eastern Japan (Fukushima, Niigata) and western Japan (Hyogo, Wakayama), achieving a geographical spread unusual for a provincial prewar spinning company.

Glass fibre industrialised in 1938 — second in the world, and at the same moment

Within Nitto Boseki’s development of its businesses, the move into glass fibre was the decision that led to the mainstay of later years. In December 1938, under Katakura’s leadership, the company succeeded in the first industrialisation of glass fibre in Japan[14]. Worldwide, Owens-Corning Fiberglas of the United States had achieved industrialisation in 1938[15], which places Nitto Boseki as the second company in the world to industrialise glass fibre[16]. In February 1939 mass production of glass fibre began at the Fukuyama plant[17], and a silk spinner had stepped into inorganic materials, the leading edge of the materials innovation of the day. In November of the same year it built a rock wool plant in Tokyo[18], entering insulation materials as well.

Under wartime conditions demand for glass fibre grew in military applications — electrical insulation for aircraft and for radio equipment — and after the war its uses widened as a material for electronic components, in the form of glass cloth for printed wiring boards. In April 1957 mass production of glass fibre began at the Fukushima plant[19], and in August 1969 a glass fibre weaving plant was newly built there[20]. In that same year the company launched glass cloth for printed wiring boards[21], entering the electronic materials market in earnest. These were the years in which colour television was spreading, and glass cloth demand grew as a board material for household electrical goods. Some thirty years on from the industrialisation of 1938, Nitto Boseki’s glass fibre business had secured its standing as a materials maker geared directly to the development of the electronics industry.

After the war, in May 1949, Nitto Boseki listed its shares on the Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Niigata stock exchanges[22]. In October 1950 it built a cotton spinning and weaving plant in Shizuoka prefecture[23]; in October 1956 it began synthetic-fibre spinning at the Koriyama plant[24], and in November 1958 at the Fukuyama plant[25]. In April 1962 it began production of the non-combustible acoustic ceiling board Mineraton at the Chiba plant[26], and in August of that year melamine decorative laminate at the Suzuka plant[27], entering the building materials field. In September 1965 it separated the Chiba and Tokyo plants to establish Nitto Boseki Kenzai Co., Ltd.[28], taking a structure under which the building materials business was run as a separate legal entity. In the same year the first president, Katakura Sanpei, retired as chairman. Forty-two years from the founding of 1923, the many-sided business portfolio Katakura had built — silk spinning plus chemical fibre plus glass fibre plus building materials — became the foundation of Nitto Boseki’s postwar management.

The 1965 fall into net loss and the standing-up of the building materials business

In the year to March 1965, Nitto Boseki fell into net loss[29]. It was a period in which the group of plants expanded to capture postwar reconstruction demand for textiles and the start-up costs of the newly entered building materials business came together, and profitability deteriorated. The immediate trigger for Katakura’s retirement in the same year is held to have been this loss. Forty-two years from the founding of 1923 and twenty years on from the war, Nitto Boseki had reached a point at which it was pressed to reorganise both its management structure and its business portfolio.

The glass fibre weaving plant built in August 1969 and the launch of glass cloth in the same year were the first step by which Nitto Boseki set about a shift in earnest from a textile-centred business towards electronic materials. In April 1971 it began production of the non-combustible acoustic ceiling board Soraton at the Chiba plant[30], and in September 1975 it built the Tomari No. 2 plant[31], expanding production capacity in building materials. In October of that year it merged Nitto Boseki Kenzai Co., Ltd. and Nitto Boseki Fudosan Co., Ltd. into the parent[32], taking the building materials business back inside the main company. In December 1977 it separated the Itami plant to establish Nitto Boseki Itami Kako Co., Ltd.[33] This recombination of the business portfolio — establishing, absorbing and separating subsidiaries in turn — continued through the 1960s and 1970s. Over roughly half a century from 1923 to 1975, Nitto Boseki became an integrated materials maker carrying businesses in five areas derived from its spinning core: textiles, chemical fibre, glass fibre, building materials and real estate.