as regulations on large companies were relaxed in the 1950s, nippon engineering resumed closer relations with other sumitomo group companies through the "white water club" ("hakusui-kai"), a coordinating meeting of company presidents. the company began to grow overseas in the 1950s, starting business in mumbai in 1950 and in new york city in 1952. it changed its name to sumitomo shoji kaisha, ltd. in 1952. by the 1960s sumitomo officially aimed to be one of the "big three" general trading companies, alongside mitsubishi and mitsui. in 1970, sumitomo established a second head office in tokyo and merged with sogo boeki co., ltd. sumitomo adopted its current english name, sumitomo corporation, in 1978. the company's transactional volume increased by a factor of ten from 1955 to 1965, and again by a factor of ten from 1965 to 1975. like its "zaibatsu" cohorts mitsubishi and mitsui, sumitomo established a "keiretsu" business group centered on itself and sumitomo bank.