The parent company’s bankruptcy and a 35-year-old president (1986)

A succession that began in crisis

The core of this episode is that an external shock beyond the company’s control — the parent’s bankruptcy — and an internal vacuum — the sudden death of the president — fell within less than a month of each other. In an ordinary succession there would have been room to take time over choosing a successor. In Sankyu’s case, Nakamura Koichi, thirty-five years old, had no choice but to take the helm while carrying the debt. That succession in a family business began not as a chosen succession but as a forced one is what makes this case unusual.

Looking at what followed, Nakamura Koichi did not merely chase the debt: he pushed group reorganization and overseas expansion in parallel, and brought one phase to a close with the merger with Okazaki Kogyo in 1990. Running crisis response and growth investment at the same time can be seen to have laid the foundation for a presidency that would last the next thirty years. The 1986 accession of a young president from the founding family, made to play defence and offence at once, was an event that tested how far a family-run company can withstand a crisis.