Buying Hawk One to widen supply capacity (2018)

What time costs when you buy it

$247.3M (¥27bn) is not extraordinary set beside the $428.4M (¥47bn) of operating profit Open House earned in the year to September 2018. It was called the company’s largest acquisition to date because until then it had grown by opening its own offices. Against the constraint of a machine that worked but lacked people, buying a company that came complete with offices, staff and tradesmen can be read as converting the years of recruiting and training into a sum of money. That goodwill came to only about $20.8M (¥2bn) indicates a transaction in which tangible assets and real earning power were bought at an honest price.

What the buyer acquired, though, was not only depth of supply. Keeping the two firms’ sales territories separate — central Tokyo and the inner suburbs — and adding unit volume while leaving the acquired company’s name and president in place became the template for the group’s later deals. Across the very different situations of Presance Corporation in 2020 and Sanei Architecture Planning in 2023, how far that template carries has produced a different answer each time. Buying time is fast; what the price tag does not specify is how the time you bought will be used.