In 1917, the Furukawa family established a family-dominated Konzern, consisting of Furukawa Gomei as the group's holding company, Furukawa Mining, Tokyo-Furukawa Bank and Furukawa Shoji in foreign trade. In the first two years of its operation, the Konzern expanded itself remarkably relying on bank loans. But in the spring of 1920, Furukawa Shoji went to bankruptcy, because it lost heavily in bean speculation in Dairen. In order to make up the loss of 26 million yen, Furukawa Gomei had to dispose of its assets, mainly stocks of its subsidiary companies. Moreover, Furukawa reduced its business and gave up foreign trade activities in 1922 and banking activities in 1931. Thus, the main business of Furukawa became nothing more than mining. As a result, the development of Furukawa-Zaibatsu was retarded and it lagged far behind the other major Konzerns such as Mitsui and Mitsubishi.
