Lion - Company History

Kobayashi Tomijiro starts making soap

In October 1891 the first Kobayashi Tomijiro (小林富次郎) began manufacturing and selling soap, and dealing in the raw materials of soap and matches, from premises at Kanda Yanagiwara-gashi in Tokyo known as Kobayashi Tomijiro Shoten[1]. Japan's modern market for household cleaning goods was only then emerging in the Meiji period, and the founder entered it as a sole proprietor; that shop is the founding of today's Lion Corporation. The business began as a dealer in raw materials for soap and matches, then opened a factory at Koishikawa in Tokyo to make toilet soaps, which it sold under brands including Kohyo (高評) and Gyunyu (牛乳, milk) soap[2]. In July 1896 it began manufacturing a fine tooth powder for the first time and named it Shishi-jirushi Lion Hamigaki (獅子印ライオン歯磨) — Lion-brand Lion Dentifrice[3]. When the tooth powder went on sale it was the fashion to put the names of beasts on products — the deer mark, the elephant mark — and the lion was adopted because an animal with strong, pure-white teeth matched the image wanted for a dentifrice[4]. The Lion brand began with that tooth powder, and the strategy of putting the image of a strong and dependable lion on both the products and the company name has been held to for the more than 130 years since[5]. In December 1910 the soap business was incorporated as the limited partnership Lion Sekken Kojo (合資会社ライオン石鹼工場, Lion Soap Works).

The first Kobayashi Tomijiro died in 1910, and his successor took the name Tomijiro in the Japanese custom of inheriting a forebear's name and carried the business on[6]. In 1916 the Lion Dentifrice Chemical Laboratory was opened, giving quality improvement and technical development in dentifrice a settled organisational base[7]. In September 1918 Kobayashi Tomijiro Shoten was reorganised as Kobayashi Shoten Co., Ltd., with capital of ¥1 million and the second Kobayashi Tomijiro as its first president[8]; this was the parent body of what later became Lion Dentifrice Co., Ltd.[9] In August 1919 the limited partnership Lion Sekken Kojo was reorganised as Lion Sekken Co., Ltd., the parent body of what later became Lion Fat & Oil Co., Ltd.[10] Of the businesses the founder had built, the two lines — dentifrice, which is to say oral care, and soap, which is to say household detergents — were thus established in the early Taisho years as separate corporations standing side by side[11]. In the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 the company lost its offices and factory at Umayabashi in Honjo, Tokyo to fire, but kept production going at its Osaka branch works and at temporary plants, and resumed shipping dentifrice not long after the disaster[12]. In 1929 capital was increased to ¥2 million, and the principal distributors were drawn together into regional Lion-kai (ライオン会) associations as part of building a nationwide sales network[13]. In April 1936 Lion Sekken's Hirai plant, formerly the Tokyo plant, was completed[14]. In September 1940 Lion Sekken changed its name to Lion Fat & Oil Co., Ltd., a renaming made in response to the wartime controlled economy in fats and oils[15].

Listing in the post-war recovery, and a widening plant network

At the end of the war Kobayashi Shoten had lost most of its dentifrice factory at Umayabashi in Honjo to fire, and suffered the further blow of losing the promising South-East Asian markets it had built up before the war[16]. Treating this as a fresh start from zero, it built product factories first and then rebuilt on three pillars — quality, advertising and sales — raising capital to ¥9 million in the first post-war issue of July 1948 and, through two paid-in increases in 1949, to $208,333 (¥75m), funds set aside for the expansion of plant[17]. In February 1949 Kobayashi Shoten changed its name to Lion Dentifrice Co., Ltd.[18] That May it listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange[19]. The listing came immediately after the stock exchanges reopened in the post-war recovery, and brought a long-established pre-war brand into the public market[20]. In June 1961 Lion Real Estate Co., Ltd. was established, today Lion Expert Business. In November 1963 Lion Service Co., Ltd. was established, later Lion Distribution Service, and in the same month Lion Armour Co., Ltd. was established jointly with Armour and others, today Lion Specialty Chemicals. In November 1960 Reed Sekken Co., Ltd. (リード石鹼) was established, renamed Lion Hanso in July 1967 and later part of Lion Distribution Service. In November 1963 Lion Fat & Oil listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. In May 1966 it listed on the first section of the Osaka Securities Exchange, a listing withdrawn in December 2007.

Having completed its post-war recovery, Lion Dentifrice accelerated product development and diversification from the late 1950s. In 1957 it launched Super Lion and became the pioneer of fluoride dentifrice in Japan[21]; in 1960 it set up the Lion Dentifrice Research Laboratory to strengthen its technical development; and in May 1961, preparing for the entry of foreign goods into the market, it launched White Lion[22]. In August 1962 it tied up with Bristol-Myers of the United States to launch the men's hair dressing Vitalis and the antiperspirant Ban, and from 1963 it moved into foods and pharmaceuticals as well, widening the spread of its businesses[23]. The Odawara plant was completed in September 1964 and the Kawasaki plant in November 1964; in December 1967 Lion Fat & Oil (Thailand) Ltd. (泰国獅王油脂有限公司, today Lion Corporation (Thailand) Ltd.) was established jointly with Saha; the Osaka plant was completed in October 1968 and the Akashi plant in April 1969 — an expansion of the domestic production network and a move into South-East Asia carried out across the high-growth years. The Odawara plant was the largest dentifrice factory in the world and was fully automated[24]. In 1966 the company marked seventy-five years since its founding, and in the first half of 1967 half-year sales passed $27.8M (¥10bn) for the first time since its founding. The joint venture with Thailand's Saha Group, a local production and sales company, was Lion's first case of establishing production and sales on the ground ahead of the field in an overseas market, and it laid the base for the leading brand position it still holds in Thailand half a century later[25]. Through the 1970s Lion Dentifrice and Lion Fat & Oil each kept independent management as companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, while working closely together through the Kobayashi family's shareholdings and the Lion brand they held in common[26].

Lion Dentifrice and Lion Fat & Oil merge as equals

On 1 January 1980 Lion Dentifrice Co., Ltd. and Lion Fat & Oil Co., Ltd. merged as equals and started afresh as Lion Corporation. More than sixty years had passed since the founder Kobayashi Tomijiro's business divided into two lines in the early Taisho years, and the two companies, which had stood side by side as listed firms after the war, merged with the aim of turning themselves into an integrated household-goods maker built on three axes — oral care, household detergents and pharmaceuticals, meaning over-the-counter medicines. The merged Lion Corporation, listed on the first sections of both the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Osaka Securities Exchange, moved into a position as one of Japan's leading household-goods makers, contesting domestic share with Kao and P&G Japan.

Through the 1980s and 1990s the company invested in overseas expansion and in research and development. Its overseas moves from the late 1980s into the 1990s were concentrated mainly in Asia, entering the household-goods markets of Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, China and elsewhere through joint ventures and local subsidiaries. In pharmaceuticals, meanwhile, it ran the joint venture Bristol-Myers Lion Co., Ltd. with Bristol-Myers and made the analgesic and antipyretic Bufferin a major hit in the domestic market. The centenary of 1991 was a moment to take stock of a hundred years of accumulation in the Lion brand, the founder's legacy.

Restructuring and overseas acquisitions in the 2000s

With the closure of the Kawasaki plant in July 2003 and the transfer of the business of Lion Oleochemical to Lion Kagaku in December of that year, forming Lion Chemical Co., Ltd., the first half of the 2000s was spent tidying up the domestic production network. In December 2004 Lion acquired the over-the-counter pharmaceuticals business of Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and the household chemicals business of CJ Corp. of South Korea, today Lion Corporation (Korea). The purchase from Chugai came amid an industry-wide reorganisation of the period in which pharmaceutical companies were narrowing their focus, and marked the point at which Lion recast itself as a major player in over-the-counter medicines, Bufferin included. In the same period the acquisition of CJ Corp.'s household chemicals business put its South Korean business on a proper footing.

With the closure of the Tokyo plant in October 2006, the establishment of Lion Eco Chemicals Sdn. Bhd. in Malaysia in June 2007, the acquisition in July of that year of the trademark rights to the analgesic and antipyretic from Bristol-Myers Squibb of the United States together with the dissolution of the joint venture with Bristol-Myers, and the withdrawal of the Osaka Securities Exchange listing in December 2007, that year became a turning point in the company's structure. By taking full ownership of the trademark rights to the analgesic and antipyretic including Bufferin, Lion established the pharmaceuticals business as one it could run on its own account. The delisting in Osaka that December concentrated its listing on Tokyo alone.

Widening the research and production network across China and South-East Asia

In June 2011 Lion (China) Daily Necessities Technology Co., Ltd. (獅王（中国）日用科技有限公司) was established, to be dissolved by absorption in August 2015. In June 2012 Peerless Lion Corporation was established in the Philippines jointly with Peerless. In March 2014 Lion took a transfer of shares from AkzoNobel and made Lion Specialty Chemicals Co., Ltd. a subsidiary. In July 2015 Lion's own chemicals business, Ippousha Oil Industries Co., Ltd. (一方社油脂工業) and Lion Specialty Chemicals were combined and launched as Lion Specialty Chemicals Co., Ltd. By taking an active part in the reorganisation of the chemicals industry, Lion enlarged the scale of its chemicals segment and settled it among the leading firms in the field. With the absorption of Lion (China) Daily Necessities Technology by Lion Daily Necessities Chemical (Qingdao) in August 2015, the acquisition of Southern Lion Sdn. Bhd. as a subsidiary in September 2015, and the dissolution of the Peerless Lion joint venture in connection with a share acquisition in July 2016, the company sorted out and reorganised its joint ventures and subsidiaries across the South-East Asian and Chinese markets.

In June 2018 Global Eco Chemicals Singapore Pte. Ltd. was established jointly with the Wilmar International Limited group. In December 2018 the entire shareholding in Lion Packaging Co., Ltd. was transferred to LEC, Inc. In January 2020 Lion Distribution Service Co., Ltd. was absorbed by merger. With the dissolution of the Global Eco Chemicals joint venture in January 2021 and the transfer of the Idemitsu Lion Composites shareholding in April of that year, the tidying up of joint ventures and subsidiaries at home and abroad continued. Consolidated results grew from sales of $4.2B (¥335bn), ordinary profit of $107.8M (¥9bn) and net profit of $52.6M (¥4bn) in FY12, the year to December 2012, to sales of $3.7B (¥411bn), operating profit of $242.5M (¥27bn) and net profit of $176.5M (¥20bn) in FY17, and sales of $3.8B (¥419bn), operating profit of $309.8M (¥34bn) and net profit of $224.6M (¥25bn) in FY18. From FY14, the year to December 2014, when the company moved onto IFRS, consolidated operating profit became a figure comparable across the industry, and its profitability as a household-goods maker rose.

The pandemic windfall, the move to Kuramae, and results that run in cycles

The pandemic of 2020 caused demand for household hygiene goods — hand soap and hand sanitiser — to expand sharply. In FY20, the year to December 2020, consolidated sales were $3.3B (¥355bn), operating profit $412.1M (¥44bn) and net profit $279.1M (¥30bn), the highest operating profit in the company's history. The operating margin jumped to 12.4 per cent. But as the pandemic receded, operating profit fell for three consecutive years — $283.3M (¥31bn) in FY21, the year to December 2021, $219.2M (¥29bn) in FY22 and $145.9M (¥21bn) in FY23 — under the double pressure of the disappearance of pandemic demand and rising raw-material prices, driven by a weak yen and dear crude oil. The operating margin fell steeply from 12.4 per cent in FY20 to 5.1 per cent in FY23, making plain that the pandemic windfall had been a one-off.

In April 2022 the revision of the Tokyo Stock Exchange's market segments moved Lion from the first section to the Prime Market. With the acquisition of Kyujitsu Hack Co., Ltd. (休日ハック) as a subsidiary in January 2022, the establishment of the joint venture Lion Kallol Limited with Kallol Limited in Bangladesh in June 2022, the move of the head office to Kuramae in Taito-ku, Tokyo in January 2023, the acquisition of shares in Merap Lion Holding Corporation in March 2023, making it an equity-method affiliate and opening the Vietnamese market, the establishment of the research and development subsidiary Lion (Shanghai) Innovation Technology Co., Ltd. (獅王（上海）創新科技有限公司) in May 2023, and the establishment in February 2024 of Yihai Kerry Lion (Shanghai) Cleaning Technology Co., Ltd. (益海嘉里獅王（上海）清潔科技有限公司) as a joint venture with a subsidiary of the Wilmar International group, the company has continued to extend its research, development and sales bases across the Asian markets in parallel with the move to the new head office at Kuramae.

With the acquisition of full ownership of Merap Lion Holding in Vietnam in July 2025, the transfer of the entire shareholding in Japan Retail Innovation Co., Ltd. to Shiseido in December of that year, the acquisition of the whole of PNB Consolidated Pty Ltd in Australia as a wholly owned subsidiary in January 2026, and the establishment of LION CORPORATION INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED in February 2026, Lion has moved in quick succession into three markets in earnest — Vietnam, Australia and India. In FY25, the year to December 2025, consolidated sales were $2.8B (¥422bn), operating profit $243.2M (¥36bn), ordinary profit $243.9M (¥37bn) and net profit $184.4M (¥28bn), putting the company on a path of recovery after the pandemic. Under president Takemori Masayuki (竹森征之), who took office in March 2023 and rose through the company from the inside, management is being run on three axes: strengthening the earning power of the three core businesses — oral care, personal cleansing and household detergents — expanding into the emerging markets of Vietnam and India, and integrating the chemicals business globally. For a company with 135 years of history behind it, the management questions of the next period come down to three: raising the overseas share of sales continuously as the domestic household-goods market matures, dealing with institutional investors now that the founding Kobayashi family's influence has waned, and a materials development strategy for an age of climate change and de-plasticisation.