The Oldest Company in the World

[Charles]

[amdg]

[Charles]

[amdg]

[Buraku]

at 400 AD the Japanese were still running around naked, throwing spears at wild animals unable to communicate, it took a few Koreans and Chinese to educate them, and a guy called Yamato tried to grab the place, it wasn't until about 650 AD that the Japanese learnt how to write and set up their own government based on a Chinese model...
...this oldest company being made when Nippon didn't even exist sounds like a shit story to me.


But I might have seen a few family lines of Greek olive growers, Indian brick layers, Jewish banker families, and Roman-Italian Bell ringers that go back about 1,500 years...however I think those civilisations and ethnic groups are far older than the Japanese

[amdg]

Seems pretty clear to me. I think it is up to you to prove Kongo Gumi isn't a company.

No, it's up to you to prove it's the oldest company in the world, as you claim in your original post.

[FG Lurker]

Seems pretty clear to me. I think it is up to you to prove Kongo Gumi isn't a company.

No, it's up to you to prove it's the oldest company in the world, as you claim in your original post.

The original post claims that it is the oldest family run enterprise in the world. At 1400+ years old, this does not seem terribly unlikely.

Europe was 100 years into the Dark Ages 1400 years ago, and they did not emerge from that religious cesspool for another 700 years. North & South America are very unlikely to have any surviving "businesses" from that time period or earlier. You might find something in China or the Middle East, but 1400 years is a helluva long time to have a company survive, especially a family run one.

I'm not saying it is definitely true, but I don't think it is an unreasonable claim, especially when qualified as being a family run enterprise.

[Mulboyne]

Nikkei (No Link) Takamatsu To Take Over Business Of Long-Lived Kongo Gumi
TOKYO --Midsize general contractor Takamatsu Corp. said Wednesday that it will take over business in January 2006 of Osaka temple and shrine builder Kongo Gumi Co. Kongo Gumi, which is Japan's oldest company, will likely be liquidated. Takamatsu will take over operations of the roughly 1,400-year-old firm through a new company established in November. Employees, orders and a portion of liabilities will be transferred to the new firm, also named Kongo Gumi, on Jan. 16.Takamatsu hopes that taking over the operations of the long-established firm will boost its brand strength. Kongo Gumi was founded in 578 by carpenters invited to Japan from Korea by Prince Shotoku to build Shitennoji, a temple in Osaka. During Japan's bubble-economy era, Kongo Gumi's borrowings ballooned with land purchases, making recovery under its own efforts difficult. Its sales in the fiscal year ended April 2005 came to roughly 7.5 billion yen.

[IkemenTommy]

We all know what the oldest occupation is though..

[Greji]

...this oldest company being made when Nippon didn't even exist sounds like a shit story to me.

To you, I'm sure it wouldn't.

IMHO, the fact of the matter is the relative newness of calling a business a "company", seems to be the problem. A company or it's modern equivalent didn't really appear anywhere until the 18th and 19th century time frames. They were generally a family businesses or stores/shops before that, so who can say what a truly oldest company should be comprised of and when it was established.

So any argument whether or not, it is a company is probably just semantics at best. The fact does remain that Kongo Gumi is truely an old enterprise!

[Taro Toporific]

The End of a 1,400-Year-Old Business
Business Week, April 18, 2007
.....Despite its incredible history, it was a set of ordinary circumstances that brought Kongo Gumi down at last. Two factors were primarily responsible. First, during the 1980s bubble economy in Japan, the company borrowed heavily to invest in real estate. After the bubble burst in the 1992-93 recession, the assets secured by Kongo Gumi's debt shrank in value. Second, social changes in Japan brought about declining contributions to temples. As a result, demand for Kongo Gumi's temple-building services dropped sharply beginning in 1998.
By 2004, revenues were down 35%. Masakazu Kongo laid off employees and tightened budgets. But in 2006, the end arrived. The company's borrowings had ballooned to $343 million and it was no longer possible to service the debt. In January, the company's assets were acquired by Takamatsu, a large Japanese construction company, and it was absorbed into a subsidiary.....more....

Nikkei (No Link) Takamatsu To Take Over Business Of Long-Lived Kongo Gumi
TOKYO --Midsize general contractor Takamatsu Corp. said Wednesday that it will take over business in January 2006 of Osaka temple and shrine builder Kongo Gumi Co. Kongo Gumi, which is Japan's oldest company, will likely be liquidated. Takamatsu will take over operations of the roughly 1,400-year-old firm through a new company established in November. Employees, orders and a portion of liabilities will be transferred to the new firm, also named Kongo Gumi, on Jan. 16.Takamatsu hopes that taking over the operations of the long-established firm will boost its brand strength. Kongo Gumi was founded in 578 by carpenters invited to Japan from Korea by Prince Shotoku to build Shitennoji, a temple in Osaka. During Japan's bubble-economy era, Kongo Gumi's borrowings ballooned with land purchases, making recovery under its own efforts difficult. Its sales in the fiscal year ended April 2005 came to roughly 7.5 billion yen.

[Jack]

I bellieve the Hudson Bay Company of Canada is the oldest incorporated company in the world still in business today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson's_Bay_Company

[james]

in our town there's a family run sake brewery and i know them quite well (i teach their daughter and his wife). they're 14th generation and have apparently been in operation since 1712.

if you've never taken a tour through a sake brewery, i highly recommend doing so. really quite interesting.

Hikami Seishu

[Charles]

I bellieve the Hudson Bay Company of Canada is the oldest incorporated company in the world still in business today.

Not even close.

[kamome]

in our town there's a family run sake brewery and i know them quite well (i teach their daughter and his wife). they're 14th generation and have apparently been in operation since 1712.

if you've never taken a tour through a sake brewery, i highly recommend doing so. really quite interesting.

Hikami Seishu

FG member Captain Japan has written about sake breweries on his blog.

[Jack]

Not even close.

Interesting list.

[Mulboyne]

[amdg]

The original post claims that it is the oldest family run enterprise in the world. At 1400+ years old, this does not seem terribly unlikely.

No, the original post is titled "The Oldest Company in the World".