Buying H&F, maker of very large presses, and Via Mechanics, maker of circuit-board drilling machines (2025)

The same purchase as half a century ago, with the motive reversed

When Amada Isamu brought Yodogawa Press and Sonoike Seisakusho into the fold between 1973 and 1977, what the money bought was land, equipment and people. The calculation was that this was cheaper than building a new plant and productive from the start, and every target was in trouble. The two deals of 2025 point the other way. H&F had sales of ¥20.9bn and Via Mechanics ¥43.3bn in the year to March 2024; neither needed rescuing. What Amada bought was a dimension it lacked — presses above 3,000 tons, and the precision to drill the fine holes of high-end circuit boards.

Whether $459.1M (¥69bn) was the right price cannot yet be judged. In the year to March 2026 sales and orders reached record highs while amortization related to Via Mechanics weighed on operating profit. The takeovers of half a century ago showed their result plainly: clear the accumulated deficit, restore the dividend. Buying a field with cash gives no answer until the fit with Amada’s own laser technology emerges as a product a customer will pay a premium for. The exchange rate at which earning power accumulated in sheet-metal machinery was converted into a ticket to a growth field will not be readable until around the end of the new medium-term plan in fiscal 2030.