is a Japanese

business magnate A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...

. Satomi is known as the founder of

Sammy Corporation is a Japanese developer and retailer of pachinko and pachislot machines, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its South Korean office, Sammy Amusement Service, is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. Sammy is a subsidiary of the entertainment cong ...

, which merged with the Japan-based video game and arcade game producer

Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...

to form the holding company

Sega Sammy Holdings (also known as the Sega Sammy Group and generally Sega Sammy, stylized as SᴇɢᴀSammy) is a Japanese holding company formed from the merger of Sega and Sammy Corporation in 2004. Both companies are involved in the amusement industry (Sega wi ...

History

Hajime Satomi withdrew from

Aoyama Gakuin University is a private Christian university in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Originally established in 1874 by missionaries from the Methodist Episcopal Church, it was reconfigured in its current form in 1949 as part of Aoyama Gakuin. Aoyama Gakuin Universit ...

November 1975 and founded Sammy Corporation. Sammy experienced significant growth when it began manufacturing machines for the

pachislot A slot machine (American English), fruit machine (British English) or poker machine (Australian English and New Zealand English) is a gambling machine that creates a game of chance for its customers. Slot machines are also known pejoratively as ...

and

pachinko is a mechanical game originating in Japan that is used as an arcade game, and much more frequently for gambling. Pachinko fills a niche in Japanese gambling comparable to that of the slot machine in the West as a form of low-stakes, low-st ...

industry (one of Japan's most popular forms of

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...

) and was successfully listed on the First Section of the

Tokyo Stock Exchange The , abbreviated as Tosho () or TSE/TYO, is a stock exchange located in Tokyo, Japan. It is the third largest stock exchange in the world by aggregate market capitalization of its listed companies, and the largest in Asia. It had 2,292 listed co ...

in March 2001. Sammy Corporation is now the leading manufacturer of pachislot and pachinko machines. With 22% shares bought in 2003, Sammy then bought a controlling share 1.1 billion dollars in Sega in 2004. Hajime Satomi heads the newly combined $4.5 billion (sales) group, now called Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. with its main businesses being those of

and

Sega Corporation is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, respectively. Its division ...

Career highlights

At the Asia Business Leaders Award in 2005, The Sega Corporation named Satomi as the new chairman in a realignment of management, after the

became Sega's biggest shareholder. Satomi, Sammy's president, succeeded

Hisao Oguchi is a Japanese business executive. He was director, vice chairman, and chief creative officer of Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. Oguchi originally was President and CEO of Sega. He currently is president and CEO of Sega Sammy Creation. Career Hisao O ...

, who has now become vice chairman and chief creative officer of the new board. The announcement came two months after Sammy, bought 22.4 percent of Sega for 45.33 billion yen ($427 million), becoming the largest shareholder in the company.

Notes

References

External links

* — 2004-02-17 * https://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/0LNE.html * http://spong.com/article/6201?cb=419 * http://globalbusinessleaders.org/WebPage/LeaderBio.aspx?leaderCd=l002&levelcd=c02r022 * https://web.archive.org/web/20070912191028/http://www.cnbcasia.com/abla2005/finalist6.shtm * http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1901 * http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/pr/corp/tpm.html

Articles

Satomi appointed as Chairman of

Interviews

Interview by Spiegel Online
- 2006-10-12 {{DEFAULTSORT:Satomi, Hajime 1942 births Living people Businesspeople from Tokyo Japanese chief executives Japanese billionaires Sega people Japanese company founders Japanese chairpersons of corporations Japanese corporate directors Japanese racehorse owners and breeders 20th-century Japanese businesspeople 21st-century Japanese businesspeople