Shigeji Ueshima
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
He joined the company in 1954 and handled steelmaking raw materials trading. From Director overseeing the steel raw materials division he rose to Managing Director and Senior Managing Director, and became President in 1995. A career employee who spent 41 years with the company, he came from steel raw materials, the company's core commodity since its founding.
Selection
In 1995 he succeeded Naohiko Kumagai as President. In the fiscal year ended March 1995, the year before he took office, consolidated net sales were ¥17,035.0 billion and profit ¥26.2 billion. In June 1994 the company had signed the production sharing agreement for Sakhalin II oil and natural gas development, and the leadership changed while it carried a project committing long-term funds to the upstream of resources. The appointment appears to have put the officer who had overseen steel raw materials in charge.
Initiatives
Amid the argument that trading companies were no longer needed, each company leaned toward its own business investments, and many of the real estate, services, and information and communications projects funded during the bubble era bore no fruit. While general trading companies other than the three former zaibatsu firms were downgraded to below investment grade, Mitsui & Co. kept its consolidated equity ratio in double digits. During his tenure consolidated net sales fell from ¥17,035.0 billion in the fiscal year ended March 1995 to ¥13,200.7 billion in the FY ended March 2000, while profit moved from ¥26.2 billion to ¥35.7 billion.
Career
Career
Mitsui &
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1995 | President |
| Jun 2000 | Stepped down as President |