The Japanese maritime community is mourning the loss of respected shipping veteran Yayoi Fujii, also known as Y Fujii, who died yesterday, aged 91.
In an email to TradeWinds, Shinsuke Fujii, son of Y Fujii, said the death of the company’s founder came unexpectedly.
“Until the day before his death, he was in the office as usual,” the younger Fujii said.
One shipping source who met Y Fujii early this week said the Japanese shipowner appeared to be physically and mentally fragile.
“It is with heavy hearts and great sadness that we have to announce the passing of our president Yayoi Fujii on 6 June 2023,” Shinsuke Fujii said.
“His leadership, entrepreneurial spirit and wisdom will be greatly missed. He has always enjoyed direct conversations with charterers, shipyards, brokers, bankers and insurance brokers.”
TradeWinds learned that Y Fujii’s funeral wake will be held on the coming Monday and Tuesday.
The history of Nisshin Shipping began in 1967 when Y Fujii was in his 30s. He decided to quit his job in dry bulk parcelling, believing he could do things better his way.
He built up the Nisshin business from scratch and based it in Tokyo, well away from the traditional shipowning regions of Hiroshima and Ehime around Japan’s Inland Sea, where the big private owners operate.
In the early days, he got the company off the ground by buying ships for the inter-Asian trades between Japan and South Korea. But gradually it grew through newbuildings based on charters with foreign operators and traders for one to three years.
Y Fujii was described as a “low-key” man who did not like his name and his shipping activities “splashed” in the industry.
Those close to him said he was extremely internationally minded and that is why most of his ships are chartered out to non-Japanese operators.
“He was one of the first Japanese private shipowners that did not rely in fixing ships to major local charterers such as NYK and MOL in order to get financing,” the shipping source said.
“He went outside of Japan, to Europe, to find long-term charterers. He once told me that the reason for doing this was that when he fixed the ships with Japanese operators, he was not considered an equal partner. Whatever they asked him, he felt obliged to do.”
“But when he fixed ships with companies like Navios and Cobelfret and many non-Japanese, he was considered an equal partner with equal standing.”
Y Fujii was said to be one of the first Japanese shipowners to turn to China for newbuildings. He secured his first newbuilding deal there in 2013.
“Back at that time, I don’t think there were many Japanese companies that dare to order ships in China due to uncertainties,” the shipping source said. “In 10 years, he ordered over 100 ships at Chinese shipyards.”
Nisshin is said to have inked newbuildings with only three Chinese shipbuilders: Jiangsu New Hantong Ship Heavy Industry, Nantong Xiangyu Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering and Jiangmen Nanyang Ship Engineering.
The vessels he ordered ranged from handysize to kamsarmax bulkers to stainless steel chemical tankers.
Today, Nisshin has around 100 vessels on the water and around 35 newbuildings on order.
