the leadership of Chobei Itoh IX. Marubeni started out as a textile trading firm and expanded to trade in other consumer and industrial goods during the 1920s.

Marubeni was re-combined with Itochu during World War II to form Sanko Kabushiki Kaisha Ltd. (1941-44) and Daiken Company, Ltd. (1944-48). This conglomerate was dismantled in the wake of the war and Marubeni again emerged as a separate trading company in 1949. Post-war Marubeni was predominantly a textile trading firm at its outset,