Mitsui Takatoshi

Mitsui Takatoshi (三井 高利, 1622 - May 29, 1694), founder of the Mitsui conglomerate. The second son of Mitsui Sokubei, a grocer and pawnbroker of Matsusaka (松阪市), in Mie, he showed a remarkably precocious talent for business from an early age, and, moving to Edo at 14 years of age, where he was later joined by his brothers Toshigutsu, and Shigetoshi, he managed to rapidly multiply his capital by developing a textile retail business after opening a clothes store gofukuya (呉服屋). A fall-out with his jealous brothers forced him to return to Matsusaka at the age of 28, where he remained for two decades, and only returned to Edo on his elder brother Toshigutsu’s death in 1673. He then established a gofukuya in Nihonbashi (日本橋) the following year, which was to become, later, the head company of the famous Mitsukoshi retail shopping chain. He subsequently started a money exchange, with a new system for inter-city loans, and died at the age of 73.