Yoshifumi Nishikawa, the first president of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC) and the first president of the privatized Japan Post Holdings Co., died Friday at age 82. Funeral services will be held by his close relatives.
Nishikawa hailed from Nara Prefecture. In 1961, he graduated from Osaka University's School of Law and joined Sumitomo Bank. There he achieved good results in dealing with a troubled trading company, Ataka Sangyo, and the midsize trading firm Itoman Corp., whose management had committed aggravated breach of trust.
He became Sumitomo Bank's president in 1997. He spearheaded negotiations for a merger with Sakura Bank, a unit of Mitsui's financial combine, crossing a boundary between former zaibatsu. He then became the first president of SMBC, which was founded in April 2001.
As president of SMBC, he struggled to dispose of huge amounts of bad loans and restore the bank's financial health, raising it into one of Japan's three megabanks. He also served as chairman of the Japanese Bankers Association. His strong leadership and strong presence earned him the nickname "Last Banker."
After retiring from SMBC in 2005, he became the first president of Japan Post Holdings Co., being recognized for his skills by the Cabinet of then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, which pushed the privatization of postal services. He played a key role in putting the privatization on track for about three years. When the then Democratic Party of Japan took power in 2009, the privatization policy was revised and he resigned.
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