Company Overview
1. History
The history of Shouei Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. <3537> dates back to 1937 when it was founded as Tetsuno Shoten for the purpose of wholesaling chemicals. Initially, it started with handling inorganic chemical products. In April 1951, it began selling fatty acids and fatty acid derivatives of Kao Soap Co., Ltd. (now Kao <4452>), taking the first step as a specialist trading company of oleochemicals.
In March 1960, the company was reorganized into a corporation and changed its name to the current one. In the same June, it renamed Shin-Nihon Yakka Co., Ltd., which had become its subsidiary, to Tetsuno Yakka Co., Ltd. and started production of chemicals such as fatty acids, fatty acid esters, and surfactants.
It entered the civil engineering and construction materials business in April 1965, focusing on the development and sales of related materials. In addition, it launched its daily commodities business in 1987 by commercializing household detergents. This laid the foundation for the current three business segments (chemical products business, daily commodities business, civil engineering and construction materials business).
As for overseas expansion, it began with the opening of the Singapore branch in 1993 for the purpose of expanding exports to Southeast Asia. Since then, it has established Shouei Sho (Shanghai) Trading Co., Ltd. (100% voting rights) in 2005 and SHOEI-TDC (THAILAND) CO., LTD. (now SHOEI TRADING (THAILAND) CO., LTD.) (49% voting rights at the time, fully owned since 2012) in 2009.
The Osaka factory, which was responsible for production (absorbed by the company in 2008 as part of streamlining its business operation and renamed the Osaka factory), was aging, so the company gradually reduced production from 2013 and withdrew from all production activities by the end of 2014 (The Osaka factory site was subsequently sold).
Today, the company specializes in oleochemical chains and expands its three businesses: chemical products, daily commodities, and civil engineering and construction materials.
As for the stock, it was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's (TSE) JASDAQ Standard in March 2016 and moved to the Standard market in April 2022 due to the TSE market reorganization.
(Written by FISCO guest analyst Noboru Terashima)