Mitsubishi & Co Europe Plc is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi and Co Europe Holdings Plc. Mitsubishi & Co Europe Plc is one of Japan's leading sogo shosha or conglomerates. The origins of the Mitsubishi group go back to the 17th century when the house of Mitsubishi flourished under Hachirobei Takatoshi Mitsubishi, a merchant who came from a long line of feudal knights. Hachirobei founded a commercial enterprise dealing in dry goods, and the House of Mitsubishi grew rapidly. He applied innovative business methods in the fields of retailing, publicity and finance. Based on the foundations created by Hachirobei, Mitsubishi developed extensively to become a business group made up of companies from diverse sectors.

The former Mitsubishi & Co.* founded in 1876 with the primary goal of opening avenues of exchange between Japan and the rest of the world, and it started with exports of rice and coal. In the same year, the Mitsubishi bank was also founded, and this helped bring in large government deposits and finance Mitsubishi's operations.

In 1883, the Company imported cotton-spinning machinery from Great Britain. In the early 1900s under the supervision of Takashi Masuda, The former Mitsubishi expanded to become a major commercial enterprise trading both in Japan and overseas. By 1906, Japan had changed from an importer to an exporter of cotton yarn, with the former Mitsubishi handling more than half of the outward bound shipments.

Trade continued to expand, so that the export of natural resources, the fuel and raw materials for industry, paid for the import of finished goods as well as machinery and advanced technology. This in turn spurred the emergence of domestic industries and new exports. The work of the trading company thus helped to transform national economies. As the circle of trade expanded, the number of trading partners increased. The former Mitsubishi had already opened offices in Shanghai, Paris and Hong Kong, New York, and London by the turn of the century. The trading company was the first to engage in offshore trade, promoting not only Japanese trade but also commerce between other nations.

Following Takashi Masuda, Takuma Dan, an MIT-trained mining engineer assumed control of the Mitsubishi Group and thoroughly modernised its operations. During his term of office, Mitsubishi increased its total capital six fold. In the 1930s, the former Mitsubishi was directed by Seihin Ikeda, who streamlined operations and guided it through the difficult period of the depression, and then the trade embargoes and government controls of the war years.

In the early post-war years, the Allied powers ordered the dissolution of the Japanese ‘Ziabatsu' - family holding companies - and the former Mitsubishi was split up into hundreds of independent companies.

In the early 1950s the companies of the Mitsubishi Group started to rejoin as a group of voluntary affiliated companies, under the name of Mitsubishi. In the succeeding two decades Japan enjoyed a period of unparalleled high growth and the Mitsubishi Group resumed its former position as one of the country's leading conglomerates. The group is now made up of a large number of Japan's leading companies, and its activities cover an extremely diversified range of activities. Currently, the core Group includes 80 companies employing a total of some 340,000 people.

The current Mitsubishi's business activities may be categorised into the following sectors -Plastics, Basic and specialty chemicals, polyester and intermediate chemicals, and steel. Further we are nvestigating and monitoring on EU trends and regulation in the fields of Trade, Energy, Environment and Industries, etc. Mitsubishi has continually adapted its services to meet client needs. Today, its operations are global in scope and its clients, and its core competencies are:

• Trading - facilitating international trading activities for its clients
• Enterprise investments - creating new trade flows through investments in new enterprises and new industries throughout the world
• Financing - offering finance as an integral part of the trading and business development activities
• Under its Long - Term Management Vision (the Vision) released in April 1999, Mitsubishi is working to enhance the value added of its services through the application of its sophisticated information and financial technologies and risk management know how. (We released Latest LTMV in 2017.)

Mitsubishi's Brussels office was founded in 1960 as Mitsubishi & Co. Ltd. Paris Office Brussels Branch. On January 4, 1971, Mitsubishi & Co. Benelux S.A./N.V. was incorporated as a Belgian company.
In 2021, Mitsubishi Benelux celebrated its 50th anniversary.

^*There has been no legal continuation between the former Mitsubishi & Co. and the current Mitsubishi & Co. which was established after the disbandment of the former Mitsubishi & Co. in 1947.