Serial acquisitions of corporate logistics subsidiaries, and the ¥1 trillion vision (2018)

A repeatable mechanism, and the problem it leaves the next generation

The run of acquisitions from 2018 — Ricoh, Toshiba, Furukawa, NSK, Bridgestone — can be seen as an extension in which the “receiving vessel” form of M&A that SBS had been honing since the 2004 purchase of Snow Brand Logistics was applied repeatedly to ever larger counterparties. The progression from revenue of ¥200 billion to ¥500 billion, and on toward the new target of ¥1 trillion, appears less the result of a single success than the output of the mechanism itself: continually finding logistics subsidiaries being carved out, and continually agreeing to take them on.

At the same time, Kamata Masahiko’s method — no restructuring, better terms for the employees who come with the deal, and a reputation that draws in the next transaction — can be seen to have eased the resistance of acquired companies’ staff, yet the more the scale and number of acquisitions accumulate, the heavier the question of how to keep the quality of each integration uniform. How a management structure that has piled up acquisitions under a single founder since the beginning will carry through to a still-expanding “¥1 trillion company” is the point to watch from here.