Hankyu Hanshin Holdings
Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc. is a Japanese multinational keiretsu holding company which owns Hankyu Corporation, the Hanshin Electric Railway Co., Ltd., Toho Co., Ltd., and affiliate companies.
On October 1, 2006, Hankyu Holdings changed its name to the present corporate name following the merger with Hanshin Electric Railway. On the same day Hankyu Corporation Group was renamed Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Group, and the Hankyu Toho Group renamed Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group.
The operations of the company are centered on transportation, retailing, real estate, entertainment and media.
The transportation segment is the company's main cashflow generating business and comprises the railway companies Hanshin Electric Railway and Hankyu Railway. It also includes the smaller railway lines of Nose Electric Railway as well as equity stakes in Kita-Osaka Kyūkō Railway, Sanyo Electric Railway, Osaka Monorail and Kobe Electric Railway. It also owned Hokushin Kyūkō Electric Railway until it was acquired by Kobe Municipal Transportation Bureau on 1 June 2020. The company also owns various taxi and bus franchises.
Hankyu and Hanshin also both had air cargo and express freight subsidiaries, which were combined in the Hankyu Hanshin Express Holdings company.
The retailing business is mainly concentrated in the company's large shareholding of H2O Retailing, the company formed via the merger of the Hankyu and Hanshin Department Store companies.
The company owns and operates many hotels, and is developing real estate projects mainly on land along its railway lines through its subsidiary Hankyu Realty, which was previously separately listed, but fully acquired through a stock swap in 2002. It has spun off some of its vast real estate holdings into a REIT company, Hankyu Hanshin Properties.
The group has a controlling stake in Toho, which next to its many media interests has also large real estate interests. Other companies in the entertainment area include the professional baseball team Hanshin Tigers and the Takarazuka Revue all-female theatre group, and stakes in Kansai TV and FM Osaka, as well as tourism operations.
Major shareholders
| Japan Trustee Services Bank, various accounts | 11.06% |
| Nippon Life Insurance | 3.35% |
| The Master Trust Bank of Japan | 3.00% |
| Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation | 2.43% |
| H2O Retailing | 1.60% |
| Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group | 0.88% |
| Takenaka Corporation | 0.73% |
In 2006, the activist Fund Privee Zurich Turnaround Group run by Kenzo Matsumara took a major stake in Hankyu Holdings, hoping to boost efficiencies in the very diverse holdings of the Hankyu-Toho group. However, the takeover of Hanshin Electric Railway by Hankyu in the wake of the affair surrounding Fund Manager Yoshiaki Murakami and the establishment by Hankyu management of anti-takeover measures, as well as the 2008 financial crisis resulted in Privee reducing its stake in the company in 2008.