5 the restriction on banks' holding of company shares was increased from 5% to 10%. However, one of the earliest changes was the repeal of the law prohibiting the use of the old zaibatsu names. Within months the Big Four had restored their names, the symbols of their former power and prestige. Driven by the fear that their shares, originally held by the zaibatsu holding companies, might fall into the wrong - especially foreign - hands, the old group banks made arrangements to buy back these shares from their new owners and then lodged them with other group members for safe-keeping. Thus began the pattern of cross-held shares that remains such a feature of Japanese industry today. As early as 1953, MITI was calling for the "keiretsification" of Japanese industry. Aware that the focal points of the largest of the old zaibatsu groups had been the main bank and a large-scale general trading company, MITI worked hard to reassemble the broken up trading companies. The banks, once they had changed their names back (with the exception of Yasuda which chose to remain the Fuji Bank), picked up where they had left off, maintaining the special relationships that they had with the members of the old groups. These original Big Four banks became the centre of the keiretsu formally founded between 1951 and 1966. They were later joined by two further groupings, centred around Dai-Ichi Bank and Sanwa Bank. Together these six groups now form Japan's "Big Six" horizontal keiretsu. It is important to add that in present day Japan zaibatsu is a pejorative term, carrying a heavy stigma as a symbol of the evils committed in an earlier age.KeiretsuKeiretsu are a tight networks of companies that share capital, research and development, customers, vendors, and distributors. They play a powerful role in the nations economy and are deeply rooted in Japans economic history. Competition between keiretsu is vigorous, as each one competes for the largest share of the m...
