zaibatsu

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Japanese“wealthy clique”

Large capitalist enterprises of pre-World War II Japan, similar to cartels or trusts but usually organized around a single family.

One zaibatsu might operate companies in many areas of economic importance; all zaibatsu owned their own banks, which they used as a means for mobilizing capital. After the war the zaibatsu were dissolved: stock owned by the parent companies was put up for sale and individual companies were freed from the control of parent companies. After the signing of the peace treaty in 1951, many companies began associating into what became known as enterprise groups; these differed from zaibatsu primarily in the informal manner that characterized policy coordination and in the limited degree of financial interdependency between member companies. Modern-day keiretsu are similar.

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More on "zaibatsu" from the 32 Volume Encyclopædia Britannica:

zaibatsu - (Japanese: "wealthy clique"), any of the large capitalist enterprises of Japan before World War II, similar to cartels or trusts but usually organized around a single family. One zaibatsu might operate companies in nearly all important areas of economic activity. The Mitsui combine, for example, owned or had large investments in companies engaged in banking, foreign trade, mining, insurance, ...

Asano Soichiro - Japanese businessman who founded the giant Asano zaibatsu, or industrial combine.

Fuji Bank - former Japanese bank, and one of Japan's largest commercial banks, that had built a network of offices, affiliates, and subsidiaries in Japan and overseas before it merged into the Mizuho Financial Group.

Dan Takuma - manager of the giant Mitsui zaibatsu, the greatest of the family-owned combines in pre-World War II Japan. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an important member of Japan's business elite, Dan was assassinated by right-wing nationalists who regarded him as a symbol of the evil power of high finance in government.

Mitsui - loose consortium of independent Japanese companies that were created out of the giant, family-owned Mitsui business combine, or zaibatsu, which was broken up after World War II. That zaibatsu, in turn, grew out of the House of Mitsui (Mitsui-ke), the largest Japanese merchant house of the Tokugawa period (1603-1867).

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