Zaibutsu hongsha

Zaibutsu hongsha (財閥公社) refers to a Surean form of business conglomerate. They are government-supported powerful global multinationals owning numerous international enterprises. The Surean word for "zaibutsu" means "business family" or "monopoly" and is often used the way "conglomerate" is used in English, while "hongsha" means "company".

There are several dozen large Surean family-controlled, government-assisted corporate groups which fall under this definition. Through aggressive governmental support and finance, some have become well-known international brand names, such as Tenraku, Aurora and Taiken.

Although the zaibutsu hongsha are powerful independent entities, they often work with the government as a guide to their policies, particularly in the areas of future direction and innovation. The government also works to promote competition between the zaibutsu hongsha to prevent monopolies.

Surea's economy was small and predominantly agricultural well into the late 20th century. However, the policies of President Daimichi Manenaga (豊田太一) spurred rapid industrialization by promoting large businesses, following his seizing power in 1975. Government industrial policy set the direction of new investment, and the zaibutsu hongsha were to be guaranteed loans from the banking sector. In this way, the zaibutsu hongsha played a key role in developing new industries, markets, and export production, helping place Surea as the fifth emerging East Asian Tiger.

Management structure
Some zaibutsu hongsha are one large corporation, while others have broken up into loosely connected groups of separate companies sharing a common name. Even in the latter case, each is almost always owned, controlled, and/or managed by the same family group.

Surea's zaibutsu hongsha are often compared with South Korea's cheabol and Japan's keiretsu business groupings, the successors to the pre-war zaibatsu. While the "zaibutsu" are similar to the "chaebol" and "zaibatsu" (the words are cognates, from the same honju, or hanja, or kanji), zaibutsu hongsha are more similar to chaebol compared to keiretsu:


 * Zaibutsu hongsha are still largely controlled by their founding families, while keiretsu are controlled by groups of professional managers.
 * Zaibutsu hongsha are decentralized in ownership, although the family members, family-owned charity and senior managers from subsidiaries owns the main company and main subsidiary. Cheabol are more centralized.
 * Zaibutsu hongsha often formed subsidiaries to produce components for exports, while large Japanese corporations often employed outside contractors.
 * Zaibutsu hongsha has historically worked with an affiliated bank, giving the affiliated companies almost unlimited access to credit, although this is no longer a universal feature of zaibutsu hongsha, since company practising this method would have to sell at least 25% of the bank's share to the government. This new policy are exercised by the government partly in order to increase the government's leverage over the banks in areas such as credit allocation. Chaebol are prohibited from owning private banks.

Big 4 zaibutsu hongsha
The big 4 zaibutsu hongsha are the main zaibutsu hongsha that dominates the Surean economy. Together, their annual revenue covers 45% of the country's annual GDP.

The big 4 are:
 * Tenraku Group (天狼グループ)
 * Aurora Group (アウローラグループ)
 * Taiken Group (大健グループ)
 * Kyung'yu Group (晨阳グループ)