Shinsen Kogyo (神繊興業), 78-year-old yarn processor, bankrupt in 2025

What happened

Why it happened

• Built for a market that shrank: multiple factories and heavy investment assumed hosiery and innerwear demand that Japan no longer produced.
• Downsizing trailed the decline: closing factories cut capacity but the market kept falling, and COVID finished the gap between cost and sales.
• A supply-chain position with no pricing power: twisting yarn for other people's products left Shinsen nothing to raise when volumes fell.

Aftermath

Shinsen Kogyo stopped business on 28 November 2025, with liabilities of about ¥1.2 billion. The Toyooka City, Hyogo Prefecture company, founded in 1947, processed twisted yarn for stockings, tights, innerwear, sportswear and sewing thread, and operated multiple factories with aggressive capital investment. Competition intensified and demand fell; the company closed factories to downsize, but the COVID-19 sales decline then squeezed cash flow until continuation became impossible.