Bunichiro Tanabe
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
He joined the old Mitsubishi Corporation in 1930, and after its dissolution served as Senior Managing Director of Shin Nihon Tsusho and Managing Director of Tozai Koeki. Tozai Koeki was one of the three companies that joined Mitsubishi Corporation in the four-company merger of July 1954. After the merger he served as President of Mitsubishi International Corporation, rose to Director and Executive Vice President, and became President in 1973. Mitsubishi International Corporation had been the company's first overseas base, set up in the same month as the merger.
Selection
In 1973 he succeeded Chujiro Fujino as President. In the fiscal year ended March 1973, the year before he took office, non-consolidated revenue was ¥5,181.9 billion and ordinary income ¥30.3 billion. On December 23 of the year he took office, the OPEC ministerial conference announced it would raise the posted price of crude oil to $11.65 a barrel, four times the $2.90 before the Fourth Arab-Israeli War. His experience leading an overseas base appears to have been applied to a period of drastic swings in resource prices.
Initiatives
Because LNG prices were basically linked to oil prices under the contracts, profits from production and sales exceeded what had been assumed when the project began. Dividends from Brunei were reflected in results from fiscal 1975 and thereafter averaged ¥20-30 billion a year. From January 1977 the ownership was changed so that the three partners each held a third. The company applied the same framework to Malaysia LNG in 1978 and the North West Shelf in Australia in 1979.
Career
Career
Mitsubishi Corporation
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1973 | President |
| 1979 | Stepped down as President |