Yasuda Zenjiro

Infobox Person
name = Yasuda Zenjiro


image_size =
caption =
birth_date = Birth date|1838|11|25
birth_place = Toyama prefecture
death_date = Death date and age|1921|09|28|1838|11|25
death_place = Ōiso, Kanagawa
education =
occupation =
title =
spouse =
parents =
children =
nationality = flagicon|Japan Japanese
known_for = Yasuda zaibatsu
education =
website = nihongo|Yasuda Zenjiro|安田 善次郎|Zenjirō Yasuda|extra=November 25, 1838—September 28, 1921 was a Japanese entrepreneur from Toyama prefecture who founded the Yasuda zaibatsu (安田財閥). He donated the nihongo|"Yasuda Hall"|安田講堂|Yasuda Kōdō to the University of Tokyo.

Yasuda Zenjiro, the son of a poor samurai in Toyama prefecture, moved to Edo at the age of 17 and began working in a money changing house.cite web | title=Yasuda, Zenjiro|url=http://www.ndl.go.jp/portrait/e/datas/343.html| date=2004] In 1863, he started providing tax-farming services to the Shogunate. After the Meiji Restoration, he provided the same services to the Meiji government. Yasuda profited from the delay between the collection of taxes and their forwarding to the government. He greatly magnified his wealth by buying up depreciated Meiji paper money that the government subsequently exchanged for gold. cite web | last = Morck | first = Randall | coauthors = Nakamura, Masao | title=A Frog in a Well Knows Nothing of the Ocean: A History of Corporate Ownership in Japan|url=http://pacific.commerce.ubc.ca/nakamura/nakamura_nber_2005.pdf| date=2004-07-14]

Yasuda helped establish the Third National Bank in 1876. Later, in 1880, Yasuda set up the Yasuda Bank (later the Fuji Bank, now Mizuho Financial Group) and the Yasuda Mutual Life Insurance Company (later merged to form Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance). In 1893, the Yasuda zaibatsu absorbed the Tokyo Fire Insurance Company (renamed the Yasuda Fire and Marine Insurance Company, now Sompo Japan Insurance).

In his later years, he donated the Yasuda Hall to the University of Tokyo and the Hibiya Kokaido hall. Yasuda was assassinated in 1921 when he refused to make a financial donation to an ultra-nationalist.cite book | last = Melville | first = Ian | title = Marketing in Japan | publisher = Elsevier | date = 1999 | page = p. 9 | isbn = 0750641452]

Yasuda was the maternal Gradfather of Avant Garde artist and singer Yoko Ono, the wife of singer and song writer John Lennon. Lennon on seeing Yasuda's Photograph for the first time is reported to have said 'That's me in a former life.' To which Ono replied 'Don't say that... He was assassinated.' [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1070543/PHILIP-NORMAN-Lennon-painted-crazed-recluse-But-truth-different--deeply-touching-.html From JOHN LENNON: THE LIFE by Philip Norman]

References