The equal merger with Nisshin Printing that created Dai Nippon Printing (1935)

What being equals left behind — a breadth of printing formats

What marks this merger out is that it was not an acquisition in which one side swallowed the other, but a union of two firms close in scale and technology, joining as equals. Choosing a partner with complementary equipment — Shueisha deep in type and letterpress, Nisshin strong in gravure and offset — created in a single stroke a market leader that held every printing format. In an age when excess competition was shaving margins, a merger that secured scale and range at once looks like a choice that anticipated the later consolidation of the printing industry.

Today’s Dai Nippon Printing has spread into a company embracing electronics, packaging and even publishing distribution — more than the word “printing” can contain. What supported that diversification was the production scale gained in the 1935 merger and the breadth of technology the two firms brought together. The choice of an equal merger, uncommon for its time, set the outline of a company that still binds its businesses under the same name ninety years on. How to face the contest of scale, and which technologies to combine in growing the next pillar — that question runs on into today’s management as it confronts the shrinking of print media.