JASDAQ: from a closed family firm to a listed company (2002)

Capital opened, management not

What lay at the centre of this decision, one might see, was not the means of raising funds so much as whether to change the character of the company. A firm the founder had started with a single lathe, keeping it alive by stopping his own salary, stepped after thirty-nine years into a place where outside investors would price it. A business with a high export ratio is easily shaken by currencies and overseas conditions, and to keep investing in bases and capacity the capital supported by the founding family and a single investment company appears to have been too thin. The staged progression from registration to listing also shows traces of a careful measuring of the distance to the market.

On the other hand, what was opened was only the capital side. The shareholding ratio fell, but the chairmanship and the presidency stayed with the founding family, and the 2019 change of president was a handover to the eldest son. Taking funds and credibility from the market while keeping management decisions in the family’s hands has continued for more than twenty years. The question of how to reconcile family continuity with the discipline of a listed company may show itself less in the present, with results strong, than at the next change of generation.