Listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (1970)

What the listing bought

In 1958 $3.3M (¥1bn) of illicit lending was raised in the Diet, and after a fifty-three-day labour dispute two successive presidents were brought in from the Bank of Japan. The 1970 listing can be read as the close of that rebuilding — a procedure by which the market was asked to appraise the bank's credit. Capital rising from $1.9M (¥700m) in 1963 to $32.5M (¥10bn) in 1972 shows how urgent the need for equity had become.

But listing did not immediately bring managerial independence. As late as 1973 the president's and deputy president's chairs were held by Bank of Japan alumni, and the change of deputy president was discussed as a personnel matter among BoJ retirees. The qualification to raise capital from the market and the ability to run the bank on one's own people are different things, and the second took longer to assemble. Chiba Bank modernized in that order — the outward form first, the substance catching up afterwards.