SAN HOLDINGS dates back to 1932 when KOEKISHA started operations in Kitahama, Osaka. Guided by the slogan of "creating funerals from the heart," the company grew steadily before and after the war. The Senri Hall opened in 1971 near Osaka, the first step toward establishing a nationwide network of funeral halls. In 1994, KOEKISHA became Japan’s first publicly owned funeral services company. In 2001, the company was first in the industry to achieve first section listings on the stock exchanges of Tokyo and Osaka. In 2004, the company was renamed SAN HOLDINGS INC. because of the change to a holding company structure and all group companies reaffirmed their dedication to providing high-quality services from the heart.

The KOEKISHA Head Office building in about 1957

One story of KOEKISHA’s origin concerns individuals who worked at a department store and had the idea of starting a funeral business at the store. Instead, they decided to leave the department store and start the funeral business, a venture business at that time, on their own.
As one way to modernize the funeral business, KOEKISHA was an incorporated company from the very beginning. There were many innovations. Employees wore uniforms and hats. The company placed advertisements on buses and distributed a funeral catalog with prices. This same spirit of creating revolutionary ideas in the funeral business is still strong today at all group companies.

A KOEKISHA employee in the late 1930s

SAN HOLDINGS is the parent company of the funeral companies KOEKISHA, SOU-SEN and TARUI as well as EXCEL SUPPORT SERVICE, a provider of services required for funerals, and Life Forward, which operates a portal site for end-of-life services. All five companies are operated as integral members of the group in order to fully benefit from the scale of funeral operations and maximize synergies among these companies.

SAN HOLDINGS holds more than 10,000 funerals every year, primarily at funeral halls in the Tokyo and Kinki areas with large population. As of Marh 31, 2023, the group operated 84 funeral halls: 18 in the Tokyo area, 52 in the Kinki area (27 in Osaka prefecture), and 14 in the San-in region (Tottori and Shimane prefectures). In recent years, growth has been focused on moving quickly to open funeral halls that dominate the areas they serve, mainly in the Tokyo and Kinki areas. The aim is to strengthen our position in existing locations and expand to more areas.