Buying Mister Minit at fifty, to escape dependence on suits (2015)

Was what it bought a business, or time?

What stands out most in this acquisition is the pricing: ¥14.6 billion paid for a company with ¥11.3 billion of annual sales, raising ¥12 billion of goodwill. Shoe repair and key cutting are a trade of small shops, no inventory, and revenue tied directly to individual skill — a rather different way of making money from a menswear chain that ran 150-tsubo suburban stores on outright purchasing. The explanation that the know-how of store operation and staff deployment is shared can stand, but whether that common ground was enough to close the gap in price is hard to affirm, given the operating losses and impairment of later years.

That said, dismissing the decision in the single word “failure” misses something. In a market where household spending on suits fell to a quarter in twenty-five years, no path remained that consisted only of improving the core business. Aoyama Trading tried the available moves in turn — its own new formats, franchises under other companies’ signs, and outright acquisition. The goal of earning 40% of sales outside the core by fiscal 2027 has still not been reached. Where to move the earning power — the ¥14.6 billion spent in 2015 can also be read less as an answer to that question than as an outlay to buy time to look for one.