Takara Tomy - Company History

The founding of Sanyo Kogyo and the birth of Plarail

Tomy's origins go back to 1924, when the first-generation Tomiyama Eiichiro (富山栄市郎) opened a toy shop in a Tokyo burnt flat by the Great Kanto Earthquake[1]. The business at first made metal toys out of tinplate, but during the war it was required to stop producing toys as a peacetime industry and shut down[2]. In January 1953 it began again as a postwar toy manufacturer: the limited partnership Sanyo Toy Works was reorganised and incorporated as Sanyo Kogyo Co., Ltd., making metal toys from a base at Tateishi in Katsushika ward, Tokyo[3]. In March 1959 the sales side was separated out into an independent subsidiary, Toyama Shoji Co., Ltd., putting manufacturing and selling into separate hands[4].

The company was early to switch its material from tinplate to plastic, and grew into the leading maker of plastic toys[5]. In October 1961 it launched Plarail, a railway toy running on plastic track — the origin of what would become its flagship brand[6]. In March 1963 Sanyo Kogyo was renamed Tomy Kogyo Co., Ltd. and Toyama Shoji was renamed Tomy Co., Ltd.[7], and in April 1969 a new head-office building went up at Tateishi in Katsushika[8].

Going abroad, and sponsoring Tokyo Disneyland

In August 1970 the company set up TOMY (Hong Kong) Ltd., its first overseas subsidiary[9]. In December 1982 TOMY UK Ltd. (now TOMY UK Co., Ltd.) secured a European base[10]. In April 1983 Tomy joined Tokyo Disneyland as an official sponsor, the starting point for its build-up in the character business[11].

TOMY France SARL. in September 1985[12], TOMY (Thailand) Ltd. in October 1987[13] and the establishment of Yujin Co., Ltd. (now Takara Tomy Arts Co., Ltd.) in February 1988[14] assembled the base for the capsule-toy and character business, and in March 1996 the founding of Tomytec Co., Ltd. added the core of the model-railway and hobby business as well[15].

Listing on the First Section, and the exclusive Hasbro distribution rights

The sharp appreciation of the yen that followed the 1985 Plaza Accord stripped the price competitiveness from an export business that then ran four plants and 1,100 employees and drew more than half its sales from exports[16]. Over the following decade, carrying surplus plant and surplus people, the company pushed through a structural reform that turned a head office built around manufacturing into one built around planning, development and sales — changing the profit structure, the mindset of its employees and the way the work was done[17]. By 1997 its earnings were underpinned, in a toy industry of violent swings in fashion, by long-lived staples — Plarail in its 38th year, Tomica in its 27th, TOMIX in its 21st — and by the steady business that came with character licences from the Walt Disney Company and others[18].

In September 1997 the shares were registered over the counter with the Japan Securities Dealers Association[19], giving the company a footing for raising capital and a lift in public recognition. In February 1998 TOMY Corporation was established in the United States as the base for the North American market[20], and in November of the same year Tomy acquired the exclusive rights to distribute the products of Hasbro of the United States and its group companies in Japan[21]. Winning the exclusive import rights to Transformers and other major overseas character lines laid the foundation for a channel of its own that would later sit alongside the Disney licence.

In March 1999 the company listed on the Second Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange[22], and in March 2000 it completed its move onto the main board with designation to the First Section[23]. In December of that year it signed a comprehensive licensing agreement with Walt Disney International Japan covering the domestic toy market[24], winning exclusive rights to Disney merchandise in Japanese toys. The exclusive Hasbro distribution rights of November 1998 and the exclusive domestic Disney toy licence of December 2000 combined to give the company a business structure that owned the exclusive Japanese channel for the major overseas character brands.

The merger with Takara, and the reshaping of the industry

In June 2004 the company set up TOMY (Shenzhen) Ltd. as a production and sales base in China, and in July 2005 it took Wako Co., Ltd. (和興, now Takara Tomy Arts Co., Ltd.) as a subsidiary, widening the base of the capsule-toy and character business further. Mainland China was now added to an overseas network that had been assembled across Europe, North America and South-East Asia since TOMY (Hong Kong) Ltd. in August 1970, and Tomy opened its new production and sales base in Shenzhen to gain direct access to the Chinese market.

In August 2005 the company signed a merger agreement with Takara Co., Ltd., and on the merger in March 2006 it changed its name to Takara Tomy Co., Ltd. Takara (the Licca-chan doll, Choro-Q) and Tomy (Plarail, Tomica) were brought into a single company, a combination of the former two largest toy makers that consolidated the core brands of Japan's postwar toy industry. In August of the same year a new wing of the head office was built at Tateishi in Katsushika, completing the management structure of the new Takara Tomy. Under Tomiyama Kantaro (富山幹太郎), the first president of the merged company and the third in the line, the starting point for the reshaping of the industry was set.

The TPG tie-up, takeover defences and the spread of production into Vietnam

In March 2007 the company announced a strategic capital and business alliance with TPG, bringing in a major private-equity partner, and in May it took Kiddy Land Co., Ltd. as a subsidiary, adding a character-merchandise retail channel to the group. In June it introduced a takeover defence, putting a defensive structure in place against the unsettled shareholder register that followed the merger.

In September 2007, as conditions around its Chinese production bases changed, Tomy began production in Vietnam, completing a shift away from concentration on China alone. In February 2008 it entered a business alliance with Index Holdings Co., Ltd. and carried out a third-party allotment of shares, and in July of the same year it made Yujin (now Takara Tomy Arts) a wholly owned subsidiary.

Meij takes the presidency, and reform from inside

In June 2015, in the first appointment of an outsider from beyond the founding family, Harold George Meij (ハロルド・ジョージ・メイ) — Dutch-born, and formerly a senior executive at Coca-Cola Japan, Sunstar and Shinsei Bank — became representative director and president. He took on internal reform and internationalisation, leading the reorganisation of the company's structure and its product lines.

From consolidated sales of $1.5B (¥163bn) and operating profit of $24.8M (¥3bn) in FY15 (the year ended March 2016), the company recovered sharply to $1.5B (¥168bn) and operating profit of $69M (¥8bn) in FY16 (year ended March 2017), and $1.6B (¥177bn) and operating profit of $119.6M (¥13bn) in FY17 (year ended March 2018), leaving the restructuring phase behind. In December 2017 Meij stepped down, and Kojima Kazuhiro (小島一洋), formerly of Mitsubishi Corporation, succeeded him in January 2018 as the fifth president.

Kojima's tenure: a stronger balance sheet, and the impact of the pandemic

In the early part of the tenure of the fifth president, Kojima Kazuhiro (小島一洋), formerly of Mitsubishi Corporation, the strong results of FY17 (year ended March 2018) and FY18 (year ended March 2019) gave way in FY19 (year ended March 2020) to a slowdown caused by COVID-19, with sales of $1.5B (¥165bn) and operating profit of $100M (¥11bn), and then to a further fall in FY20 (year ended March 2021) to $1.3B (¥141bn) and $64.5M (¥7bn).

The strengthening of the balance sheet nonetheless continued. Total interest-bearing debt was reduced from $491.7M (¥60bn) in FY14 to $312.4M (¥34bn) in FY20 and $27.9M (¥4bn) in FY24, while the equity ratio roughly doubled, from 30.6 per cent in FY14 to 64.2 per cent in FY24. Alongside the fall in profit through the pandemic, the capital structure was put in order — and it became the source of the company's capacity to invest over the longer term.

The centenary, and the drafting of the Mid- to Long-Term Management Strategy 2030

In June 2024, timed to the hundredth anniversary of the founding that fell in the same year, the presidency passed from the fifth president, Kojima Kazuhiro (FY17–FY22), to Tomiyama Akio (富山彰夫) of the second generation of the founding family (FY23–; born August 1984, and a career employee who joined Takara Tomy). Succeeding the former CEO Tomiyama Kantaro, who became honorary chairman, President Tomiyama Akio returned the line of chief executives to the founding family, and — out of a career in the overseas and global-strategy side of the business — drew up and launched the Mid- to Long-Term Management Strategy 2030. The Integrated Report 2024 sums it up: In June 2024 the management structure was renewed, succeeding a predecessor who had served as representative director and CEO for more than thirty years. Taking the hundredth anniversary of the founding as the occasion, the company announced its purpose and the Mid- to Long-Term Management Strategy 2030.

The new strategy widens the base of the business from toys to play, and sets out an extension along the age axis with the Kidult segment in mind together with growth in overseas sales. The top priority is expanding sales into the Chinese market, monetising the core brands — Tomica, Plarail, the Licca-chan doll, Transformers, Beyblade and others — through investment in intellectual property, while the business alliance with Hasbro of the United States, in place since November 1998, continues. FY24 (year ended March 2025) set a new record: sales of $1.7B (¥250bn) (up 20.1 per cent year on year), operating profit of $166.2M (¥25bn) (up 32.2 per cent, an operating margin of 9.9 per cent) and net profit of $109.3M (¥16bn) (up 66.7 per cent) — the renewal of the management structure and the high-water mark of the results arriving together at the hundredth-anniversary milestone. The Integrated Report 2025 records that in pursuing the Mid- to Long-Term Management Strategy 2030, Takara Tomy, through continuous investment in its brands over many years, announced at the hundredth anniversary of its founding its purpose — Play makes the world a better place — and its new tagline, Dream, and fight for it.

In FY25 (year ended March 2026), the 101st year and the first past the centenary, the company is rebuilding in response to a quality-related incident that has made the strengthening of its quality-control structure an important responsibility. Under a serving chief executive drawn from the second generation of the founding family, the structural extension into the next decade, built around the Mid- to Long-Term Management Strategy 2030 and the new purpose, now stands as the test of its management.