Joining the GMO group, and absorbing two rival processors (2004)

The capital moved first, and the target was already there

The sums actually spent in this sequence were not large. The Payment One business was transferred for $2.5M (¥275m), a figure within reach even against consolidated revenue of ¥1.3 billion at the time. What mattered was the order of events. In the course of the parent company changing hands, a vehicle called CCS Holding was created; the vehicle passed to the GMO group; and waiting at the destination were payment subsidiaries of the same kind. This was less the result of searching for acquisition targets than of capital moving first and the companies to be combined being already in place.

Payment agency work is a patient business, added one merchant at a time. On top of that patience came an external increment that multiplied active merchant sites 2.4-fold in a single year. The goodwill of ¥270.2 million written off in one go in the year ended September 2005 pushed that year’s net profit down to ¥30.2 million. Twenty years later, in the year ended September 2025, the same company reported consolidated revenue of ¥82.49 billion.