The Takashimaya card alliance and an equidistant policy across keiretsu lines (2004)

The freedom gained by discarding the keiretsu

The core of this decision can be seen in the company treating the memory of its own origin in the Saison group as a constraint rather than an asset, and gaining freedom of negotiation by cutting it. For a company that had entered Seibu’s orbit as Midoriya and grown into the credit core of the Saison group, choosing to team up with Takashimaya — the old Seibu’s rival — is, in terms of its own history, paradoxical. But for President Hayashino the keiretsu was not an asset to be defended; it was a constraint to be discarded in order to win a contest of scale. In the ease with which it turned former adversaries — Marui, Lawson, Resona and then Takashimaya — one after another into partners, one sees the notion that freedom of movement is bought by giving the keiretsu up.

Even so, a bundle of alliances that crossed keiretsu lines did not by itself guarantee a place among the winners. The 17.9% share drawn up by adding the partners together was no more than a sum of gathered allies, and whether a loose confederation would turn into monolithic competitive strength was left to how it was subsequently run. In fact Credit Saison went on to absorb UC Card in 2006, moving to bring the confederation inside its own capital. How far it could re-bind the widened circle of alliances into an earnings base of its own was the question left to a company that had discarded its keiretsu.