0 in Japan, a group of companies that are closely connected, for example because they own shares in each other, and that work together to develop and protect each other's business:
All three predecessors were major financial institutions in their own right and had served as cornerstones of major zaibatsu (prewar era) and keiretsu (postwar era).
The major "keiretsu" were each centered around one bank, which lent money to the "keiretsu's" member companies and held equity positions in the companies.
Where possible, "keiretsu" companies would also supply one another, making the alliances vertically integrated as well.
There are two types of "keiretsu": vertical and horizontal.
The banks at the top are not as large as normally required, so it is actually considered to be more horizontally integrated than other "keiretsu".
Generally, these groups exhibit more top-down management, centralized control or (in the case of airline alliances) looser equity ownership connections than do true "keiretsu".
Product diversification became an essential ingredient of the growth patterns of many keiretsu.
While the keiretsu still exist, they are not as centralized or integrated as they were before the 1990s.
