As one of the oldest and most established shipbuilding companies in Japan, Mitsui E&S Holdings announced that it has sold all of its shares in Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding and has since completely withdrawn from the shipbuilding industry.
Recently, Mitsui E&S Holdings announced on its official website that it has transferred the remaining 34% of Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding’s shares to Japan’s Tsuneishi Shipbuilding Group for about 4.2 billion yen (about $28.82 million). Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding is a subsidiary of Mitsui E&S Holdings, mainly responsible for ship design and construction.
Upon completion of this transaction, Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Tsuneishi Shipbuilding, marking the complete withdrawal of Mitsui E&S Holdings from the shipbuilding business.
Public information shows that Mitsui E&S Holdings is affiliated to the Mitsui Group. Its predecessor was the shipbuilding department of Mitsui & Co., Ltd. established in 1917. In 1937, the shipbuilding department of Mitsui & Co., Ltd. was split off independently and renamed Mitsui Shipbuilding in 1942. On April 1, 2018, it was renamed Mitsui E&S Holdings. The E and S in the company name stand for “Engineering” and “Shipbuilding” respectively.
As one of Japan’s oldest shipbuilders, Mitsui E&S Holdings’ shipbuilding volume was once second only to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan. However, in recent years, Mitsui E&S Holdings has suffered losses year after year in competition with Chinese and Korean shipbuilders, and was forced to announce the end of its shipbuilding business and sell it off.
As early as 2018, Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding began planning to form a business alliance to stabilize the profits of the shipbuilding business and reduce losses. In the same year, it reached an agreement with Tsuneishi Shipbuilding to combine merchant ship resources and strengthen cooperation in design and development capabilities and cost competitiveness through cooperation in various fields such as design, R&D, procurement, and use of production facilities.
In July 2020, the two parties reached an agreement on further strengthening commercial ship cooperation and equity transfer. The equity transfer agreement originally scheduled to be signed at the end of 2020 was postponed to April 2021 due to subsequent discussions and reviews. Between 2021 and 2025, Tsuneishi Shipbuilding has acquired Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding shares in three installments.
In April 2021, Tsuneishi Shipbuilding acquired 49% of the outstanding shares of Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding, involving Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding’s merchant ship business and some of its subsidiaries (Niigata Shipbuilding, Mitsui Yura Dockyard) and affiliated companies.
In October 2022, Tsuneishi Shipbuilding went on to acquire 17% of the shares of Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding, increasing its shareholding to 66%, and the shareholding of Mitsui E&S Holdings dropped to 34%, marking Tsuneishi Shipbuilding’s emergence as the largest shareholder of Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding, and thus Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding and its subsidiaries, Niigata Shipbuilding and Mitsui Yuria Dockyard, became consolidated subsidiaries of Tsuneishi Shipbuilding.
Together with the newly acquired 34% stake, Tsuneishi Shipbuilding has achieved full ownership of Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding, which also means that Tsuneishi Shipbuilding also indirectly owns a stake in Yangzi Mitsui Shipbuilding, located in China.
It is worth noting that in June 2020, Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding also negotiated with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on the naval and public ship business. In 2021, Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding transferred its naval and business ship business to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which includes the development of surface and underwater autonomous vehicles as well as the takeover of the construction and maintenance operations of Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding’s Tamano Shipyard.
In addition, Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding is giving its 49.5% stake in Shikoku Shipbuilding to Japanese shipowner Nissen Kaiun in 2021. In the same year, the Chiba plant announced the official end of its merchant shipbuilding business.