Business portfolio supporting collective mouse management

「In reviewing its business portfolio, the company conducted a comprehensive review of all consolidated group companies from the 3 perspectives of strategic fit, financial performance and governance, assessing whether each business should and could be held by the company.」

「The group originated in the industrial gas business and has pursued diversification by leveraging the breadth of related industrial fields, while seeking stability through an all-weather management approach. At the same time, it is also true that the group's core competencies became less clear as diversification broadened and the number of group companies increased. The company recognizes the need to redefine the group's strengths once again when reviewing its group-wide strategy.」

「Against this backdrop, the Group accelerated efforts to strengthen the profitability of its existing domestic businesses through integrated group management centred on the unit system, while building a foundation for the industrial gas business overseas, a future growth area, and creating new carbon-neutral and agriculture-related businesses that contribute to solving social issues.」

「The company will create synergies by combining its diverse businesses, personnel and technologies with its locally rooted business platform, and optimize the Group's management resources through a shift from partial optimization to overall optimization. In this way, it aims to enhance corporate value from both economic and social perspectives and achieve sustainable growth.」

「Based on this basic policy and management strategy, the group established an integrated management structure combining the company's head-office organization and group companies to maximize synergies created from its management resources—“diverse businesses, human resources, and technologies.” It worked to expand growth areas, including industrial gases in India and North America and electronics-related fields, strengthen the earnings power of existing businesses centered on wellness, and develop new businesses, including decarbonization-related operations.」

「In April this year, as a foundation for realising its long-term vision, the company implemented a large-scale organisational reform and transitioned to a management structure in which the company's head office organisation and group companies operate as one, with the aim of creating synergies by integrating and optimising the group's management resources: its diverse businesses, people and technologies.」

「The strengths of its conglomerate management, encompassing various business fields that support people's lives and livelihoods, including industrial gases, healthcare and sanitation, energy, agriculture and food, and logistics, together with its business foundation rooted in local communities, were fully demonstrated even under the unprecedented conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic.」

「At the same time, in addition to the chemicals-related business, where business-structure reform had progressed, the energy-related and logistics-related businesses also secured higher profits. The stability of the business portfolio, based on an optimal balance between industrial and consumer-facing businesses, the group's greatest strength, demonstrated its resilience even amid the unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic.」

「Since its establishment in 2000, the company has operated under the management philosophy of bringing together its collective wisdom to create and develop businesses connected with air, water, the Earth and people, with the spirit and pride of its founders. It has advocated all-weather management and collective management like a colony of mice, pursued a policy that every business is a core business, and sought to create synergies across the Group and make their results firmly established, guided by the principles of looking carefully at one's own conduct and free-ranging discussion and action.」

「The company will continue to promote more forcefully its “all-weather management,” which withstands a wide range of environmental changes through an appropriate balance between industrial and consumer-facing businesses, and its “mice collective management,” which generates diverse synergies through collaboration among a group of energetic mid-sized companies with strong adaptability. It aims to achieve sustainable growth by building a corporate structure resilient to changes in the operating environment.」

「Business groups representing the “mice collective,” including the salt, logistics and aerosol businesses, made steady progress in improving existing businesses and pursuing growth areas.」

「In addition, the group of businesses supporting the group's collective management, including the seawater and logistics businesses, steadily implemented their respective growth strategies and made significant contributions to company-wide performance.」