The financial group dates back to 1880 as the Yokohama Specie Bank later renamed to The Bank Of Tokyo, Ltd. Also in 1880, The Mitsubishi Bank, Ltd. was founded by former samurai Yataro Iwasaki. In 1919, the Mitsubishi Bank financed the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, most of which is today Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In April 1996, The Mitsubishi Bank, Ltd. and The Bank of Tokyo, Ltd. merged. In July 2004, Japan's fourth-largest financial group UFJ Holdings offered to merge with MTFG. The merger of the two bank holding companies was completed on October 1, 2005. UFJ was created from a merger with the Toyo Trust and Banking, a part of the Toyota Motor Corporation. Toyota's chairman sat on the board of the UFJ which became one of the world's largest money losing corporations. UFJ was accused by the government of corruption and making bad loans to the yakuza crime syndicates. The UFJ is one of the largest shareholders of Toyota. The trust banking and securities units of the two groups were merged on the same day. The core banking units of MTFG and UFJ, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd. and UFJ Bank, respectively, continued to operate separately until January 1, 2006, when they were merged to form The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd.. In September 2008, MUFJ signed a letter of intent with Morgan Stanley to form an alliance and purchase 20% of the American firm.[5] In 2008 at the 2008 ALB Japan Law Awards[6], Mitsubishi UFJ was crowned: In-House of the Year - Japan Investment Bank In-House Team of the Year Deal of the Year - Debt Market Deal of the Year In April 2011, UFJ and Morgan Stanley entered into an agreement to convert UFJ's outstanding convertible preferred stock in Morgan Stanley into Morgan Stanley stock.