Cross-shareholdings with Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal — and their unwinding 23 years later (2002)

The umbrella never once opened

The shares were held in order not to merge. At the comprehensive alliance announced in December 2001, vice-president Mitsutake Norifusa stated flatly that there would be no capital relationship and no change to an independent course; about a year later Kobe Steel exchanged capital with Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal anyway. A few percent was far too small to reach into a partner’s management, and probably just enough to secure someone to consult if a takeover proposal arrived. For a company with a ¥1.3 trillion market capitalisation, it was likely the smallest sum that would buy continued independence.

That umbrella, however, never once opened. Mittal Steel never reached for Kobe Steel, the three-way memorandum’s joint studies never moved, and half the stake was sold in 2014 and the remainder in 2025. In both cases the reason was the balance sheet and capital efficiency, not the content of the alliance. President Inubushi Yasuo had said that competitiveness in steel rests on the mills; twenty-three years on, what remained was not the shares either, but the practical business of trading iron units back and forth.