Seibu Holdings Inc. (株式会社西武ホールディングス) is a Japanese multinational holding company that primarily owns Seibu Railway, Prince Hotels, and Seibu Bus and its subsidiaries, which are collectively known as the Seibu Group (西武グループ). In total, fifty-three companies across the world are affiliated with the Seibu Group. The company was formed in 2006 to restructure the group after it had come to light in 2004 that the predecessor to Seibu Holdings, Kokudo, had falsified the ownership of its shares in Seibu Railway for over forty years.
As of January 2015, Seibu Holdings' share prices exceed ¥2900 and the company has the highest market capitalization of any Japanese company which owns a private rail network.
History
In 2004, the Seibu Group collapsed due to the revelation that the head of Kokudo Corporation (the predecessor of Seibu Holdings), Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, had falsified financial statements for over forty years. The scandal, which involved falsifying the ownership of Kokudo's share holdings in Seibu Railway, was compounded by the increased competition faced by Prince Hotels in the hotel and leisure market as well as an additional pay-off scandal involving a corporate racketeer. Seibu Railway was consequently delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange in December 2004 after shares fell to ¥400 from a peak of ¥8000.[5]