Buying the Asian network outright (2018)

A decision settled by what was closed afterwards

Sales rose from ¥16.0bn to ¥23.1bn in a single year; operating profit moved only from ¥5.3bn to ¥5.5bn. What the March 2018 share purchase brought onto the consolidated accounts was revenue, offices and ¥185m of first-year goodwill amortization — not the way of earning that had produced a 33.1% operating margin in domestic placement. Putting capital in makes each country’s profit and loss appear in the group’s books; it does not change whether those offices can earn. The productivity each country had shown across sixteen years of alliance simply became the consolidated numbers.

It took seven years for the overseas business to return to an operating profit of ¥287m. In the meantime the mainland China and Hong Kong offices disappeared, and impairments were taken in Thailand and Singapore. Even in the year ended December 2025, overseas accounts for only 8.7% of consolidated sales. Still, the move in 2024 to shift management functions from Singapore back to the Japanese head office appears to fill in what the company’s anniversary history calls “integrating it again” — not by adding offices, but by having head office take the functions back. The substance of this decision lay in being able to decide what to close after buying.