Mizuho Financial Group - Company History

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Financial history 2006–2026 — revenue, cost structure, balance sheet, cash flow and key ratios, year by year →

Founded
1880
Head office
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Listed
2003 · TYO: 8411
Founder
Yasuda Zenjiro
Former names
Mizuho Holdings (2000–2003)
Revenue · FYE Mar 2026
$57.4B (¥9.09tn)
Net profit · FYE Mar 2026
$7.9B (¥1.25tn)

Timeline

1999–2002Three banks gather under a holding company, and the bank is split by customer type

  1. 1998The Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan and the Nippon Credit Bank fail
  2. 1999IBJ, Dai-Ichi Kangyo and Fuji announce full integration on 20 August
  3. 2000Mizuho Holdings established by share transfer on 29 September
  4. 2000Combined assets of about ¥140tn, the largest in the world at the time
  5. 2000The Japan Fair Trade Commission clears the combination
  6. 2000Plan set out: 150 branches consolidated, 6,000 staff cut over five years
  7. 2001Mycal, a main Dai-Ichi Kangyo borrower, fails in September
  8. 2001All nine Mizuho Holdings directors to resign, announced in December
  9. 2002Split-merger into Mizuho Bank and Mizuho Corporate Bank on 1 April
  10. 2002Nationwide ATM stoppages and double debits on the first day
  11. 2002The Financial Services Agency issues a business improvement order on 19 June

2003–2010A two-tier holding company, from the ¥1 trillion capital raise to Lehman

  1. 2003Mizuho Financial Group established in January
  2. 2003Maeda Terunobu becomes the first president
  3. 2003Capital raise of about ¥1tn; shares listed in Tokyo and Osaka in March
  4. 2003Four specialist rehabilitation subsidiaries set up in May
  5. 2003Mizuho Advisory established in June to supply rehabilitation schemes
  6. 2004104 branches consolidated in the year to March
  7. 2005Two-tier structure unwound; Mizuho Holdings renamed Mizuho Financial Strategy
  8. 2006American depositary shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange in November
  9. 2007Dai-Ichi Kangyo Asset Management absorbs Fuji Investment Management
  10. 2009Consolidated net loss of ¥588.8bn for the year to March
  11. 2009Shinko Securities absorbs Mizuho Securities and takes its name
  12. 2009Tsukamoto Takashi becomes president in June
  13. 2010Orient Corporation becomes an equity-method affiliate in September

2011–2019From the second system failure to One Mizuho and MINORI

  1. 2011Second large-scale failure in March; 440 branches and 1,600 ATMs stop
  2. 2011Merger of Mizuho Bank and Mizuho Corporate Bank announced on 18 May
  3. 2011The Financial Services Agency issues business improvement orders on 31 May
  4. 2011Sato Yasuhiro becomes group CEO in June
  5. 2011Trust, Securities and Investors Securities made wholly owned in September
  6. 2011Target of 3,000 job cuts and ¥100bn a year of integration benefit
  7. 2013Merger approved on 21 June and completed on 1 July as one Mizuho Bank
  8. 2014Moves to a committee-based company structure in June
  9. 2015North American loan assets and staff taken over from RBS
  10. 2016Mizuho Americas LLC established in July
  11. 2017Plan to cut about 19,000 staff and about 100 locations, 13 November
  12. 2018Sakai Tatsufumi becomes president in April
  13. 2019About ¥680bn of losses; net profit down 83 per cent to ¥96.5bn
  14. 2019MINORI fully live in July after 350,000 person-months of work

2020–2026Eight failures, and a medium-term plan that names what will be cut

  1. 2021ATM failures from 28 February; 5,244 cards and passbooks swallowed
  2. 2021Eight system failures in all between February and September
  3. 2021Special investigative committee publishes its report in June
  4. 2021FSA business improvement order and MOF corrective order on 26 November
  5. 2021Sakai resigns; Fujiwara and Sato step down
  6. 2022Kihara Masahiro becomes president on 1 February
  7. 2022Capital and business alliance with Mizuho Leasing in March
  8. 2022Mizuho Securities takes 19.99 per cent of Rakuten Securities in October
  9. 2023Medium-term plan names housing loans for reduction in May
  10. 2023Greenhill acquisition agreed on 22 May and completed on 1 December
  11. 2023Rakuten Securities stake raised to 49.00 per cent in December
  12. 2024Business improvement order effectively lifted on 19 January
  13. 2024About ¥165bn invested for 14.99 per cent of Rakuten Card in November
  14. 2025Record ordinary income of ¥9,030.3bn and net profit of ¥885.4bn

1999Three banks gather under a holding company, and the bank is split by customer type

Three banks that had spent the twentieth century in different businesses — industrial finance at the Industrial Bank of Japan, public money and mass deposits at the Fuji Bank, and the largest postwar branch network at the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank — put themselves under a single holding company in September 2000, creating a bank with combined assets of roughly $1299.4B (¥140tn). Scale came first, and the decisions about whose systems and whose organisation would prevail were left for later; on the first day of the new two-bank structure in April 2002 that postponement came due.

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2003A two-tier holding company, from the ¥1 trillion capital raise to Lehman

Mizuho Financial Group itself was incorporated in January 2003 and listed that March, sitting above Mizuho Holdings in a two-tier structure that took until 2005 to unwind. Between a capital raise of about $8.6B (¥1tn) at the depths of the bad-loan problem and a net loss of $6.3B (¥589bn) after Lehman, ordinary income moved from $30.6B (¥3.56tn) in the year to March 2006 to $32.1B (¥2.82tn) in the year to March 2010 — while the interconnected core systems inherited from the three banks were still untouched.

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2011From the second system failure to One Mizuho and MINORI

A second nationwide failure in March 2011, set off by relief donations for the Great East Japan Earthquake, did what the first had not: it forced Mizuho to fold away the two-bank split, put decision-making in one place under a group CEO, and rebuild the core banking system from the ground up. MINORI went fully live in July 2019 at a cost in the mid-$4.1B (¥450bn) range, and in the same year Mizuho cleared about $6.2B (¥680bn) of losses in a single pass.

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2020Eight failures, and a medium-term plan that names what will be cut

Eighteen months after MINORI went fully live, Mizuho Bank suffered eight system failures between February and September 2021, drawing a fourth business improvement order and the resignation of its president. Under Kihara Masahiro the group stopped assembling missing capability itself and bought it instead — Greenhill in the United States, stakes in Rakuten Securities and Rakuten Card at home — while ordinary income rose from $37.3B (¥3.99tn) in the year to March 2020 to $57.4B (¥9.09tn) in the year to March 2026.

Read the full history in Japanese →

References & sources

  1. Mizuho Financial Group (annual securities reports), including the corporate-history section and the consolidated financial statements; earnings-briefing materials of November 2022; releases of 22 May 2023 on the acquisition of Greenhill & Co., Inc. and of 1 December 2023 on its closing.
  2. Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei Inc.): 18 May and 12 Nov 2011; 21 Jun and 1 Jul 2013; 12 Nov 2016; 13 Nov 2017; 21 Dec 2018; 7 Mar 2019; 3 Mar, 26 Nov 2021; 7 Oct 2022; 20 Jan 2024; 17 Aug 2018 on the 20 August 1999 announcement of the three-bank integration.
  3. Nikkei xTECH / Nikkei BP, the Nakata Atsushi series on the Mizuho systems integration: 16, 17, 19 and 25 Jul 2019; 26 Jul 2019 on the split of orders among Fujitsu, IBM, Hitachi and NTT Data; 4 Sep 2019.
  4. Nikkei Business (Nikkei BP), no. 1130, 25 Feb 2002, on the large companies that turned away from Mizuho Corporate Bank.
  5. Shukan Toyo Keizai (Toyo Keizai Inc.): 4 and 11 Sep 1999 on the birth of the megabank; 8 Dec 2001 on the resignation of all nine directors; 21 Feb 2004 and 28 May 2005, interviews with Maeda Terunobu; 5 Nov 2011, interview with Sato Yasuhiro; 25 Nov 2017; 29 Jan 2022; 15 Jul 2023, interview with Kihara Masahiro and the report on the cut to housing loans; 30 Nov 2024. Toyo Keizai Online, August 2022.
  6. Financial Services Agency: administrative actions against Mizuho Financial Group of 19 Jun 2002, against Mizuho Bank and Mizuho Financial Group of 31 May 2011, and of 26 Nov 2021.
  7. Japan Fair Trade Commission, FY2000 case 1, on the business combination of the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, the Fuji Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan through the establishment of a holding company.
  8. System Failure Special Investigative Committee, investigation report (published version), 15 Jun 2021.
  9. Rakuten Group: releases of 7 Oct 2022 and 9 Nov 2023 on the strategic capital and business alliance between Rakuten Securities Holdings and Mizuho Securities.
  10. A Conspectus of Japanese Corporate Histories, Toyo Keizai Inc. (1995), the entries for the Fuji Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan.
  11. Bloomberg, 17 Jan 2022, on the appointment of Kihara Masahiro. Kabutan News, 22 May 2023, on Greenhill shares.

Yen amounts are converted at the average rate of each figure’s own year — not today’s rate; revenue charts are shown in yen. Exchange rates & sources — the full ¥/US$ table →

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