Keikyu - Company History

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Financial history 1953–2026 — revenue, cost structure, balance sheet, cash flow and key ratios, year by year →

Founded 1898
Founder Tachikawa Yujiro 立川勇次郎
Founding location 神奈川県川崎
Core business at founding Electric trains carrying pilgrims to Kawasaki Daishi temple
Listed 1949
President Kawamata Yukihiro President since 2022 (age 62, as of 2026)
Current priority Property development · Capital efficiency Redeveloping the three districts at the west exit of Shinagawa station and shifting to a property-turnover model
Founding
In February 1898 Tachikawa Yujiro and his backers founded Daishi Electric Railway with capital of ¥98,000 to carry pilgrims to Kawasaki Daishi temple. Services opened between Rokugobashi and Daishi in January 1899, the first electric trains in the Kanto region, but pilgrimage traffic alone left little room to grow, and three months after opening, in April 1899, the company changed its trading name to Keihin Electric Railway and recast itself as an intercity railway linking Tokyo and Yokohama. It completed the Shinagawa–Kanagawa line in December 1905, and in November 1941 it merged with Shonan Electric Railway and Shonan Hanto Jidosha, which held the lines on the Miura Peninsula, putting everything from Tokyo to the Miura Peninsula under a single company. In May 1942 wartime consolidation under the Land Transport Business Coordination Act folded it into Tokyo Yokohama Electric Railway to form Tokyo Kyuko Dentetsu, and the Keihin name went out of use for a time. In June 1948 it was separated out again as Keihin Kyuko Electric Railway with capital of ¥100 million.
The Decision
A branch line running into Haneda Airport overtook the main line between Tokyo and Yokohama in value. The line was extended to Tenkubashi in 1993 to meet the Tokyo Monorail, but passengers still had to change trains, and in November 1998 the Tenkubashi–Haneda Airport section opened and trains ran straight into the terminal building. Haneda Airport International Terminal station followed in October 2010, and in October 2012 the grade-separation works at Keikyu Kamata station were completed, removing the crossing of the main line and the airport line and allowing more services towards the airport. Alongside this, in October 2003 the road transport business was transferred to Keihin Kyuko Bus, splitting apart seventy-six years of running rail and bus as one operation, and in September 2019 the head office was moved from Minato ward in Tokyo to Yokohama. The branch line run out to the airport became the source of demand that replaced carrying passengers along the Tokyo–Miura corridor.
Today
Six-tenths of the profit comes from the railway, and the money for investment comes from land at Shinagawa. In the year to March 2026 consolidated revenue was $1.9B (¥304bn), operating profit $211.8M (¥34bn) and net profit $173.2M (¥27bn). Transportation earned $761.9M (¥121bn) of revenue and $117.6M (¥19bn) of profit, Retail and Distribution $529.2M (¥84bn) and $13.3M (¥2bn), Real Estate $285.2M (¥45bn) and $29.1M (¥5bn), and Leisure and Services $195.4M (¥31bn) and $34.8M (¥6bn), with Transportation taking 60 per cent of the $196M (¥31bn) the four businesses made between them. In the year to March 2024 the company transferred part of its interest in the land at the west exit of Shinagawa station to Toyota Motor, booking an extraordinary gain of $631M (¥96bn) and putting it towards the mixed-use building due to open in the 2029 financial year. In the same year it froze the doubling of the Kurihama line and booked an impairment loss of $66.7M (¥10bn). Calling off the investment that would have added track along its own route left a company concentrating its capital on the three districts at Shinagawa.
Competition
The rival is not another private railway along the line but the investor counting unrealised gains. Keikyu holds property around Shinagawa station that is inseparable from the railway, yet the unrealised gain on its rental property is carried at book value and does not show in the share price, and in November 2024 the price-to-book ratio stood at 0.91. From October 2024 an investment company of the former Murakami Fund group built a stake in Keikyu, raising it to 5.11 per cent by February 2025 and 9.14 per cent by July. Keikyu revised its 20th Comprehensive Management Plan in May 2025, setting out a policy of buying back its own shares as opportunity allows against a payout ratio of around 40 per cent, and bought $63.2M (¥10bn) of stock in the 2025 financial year. Some in the market have begun to predict a merger with Keisei Electric Railway, a company of similar size. It was not the rival it fought for passengers at Haneda but an investor questioning the treatment of the unrealised gains at Shinagawa that pushed it to rewrite the comprehensive management plan.

Timeline

1898–1947Fifty years from a pilgrimage line at Kawasaki Daishi to absorption into Greater Tokyu

  1. 1898Daishi Electric Railway founded with capital of ¥98,000
  2. 1899Services open between Rokugobashi and Daishi — the first electric trains in Kanto
  3. 1899Renamed Keihin Electric Railway three months after opening
  4. 1905Shinagawa–Kanagawa through line completed, joining Tokyo and Yokohama
  5. 1925Shonan Electric Railway founded with capital of ¥12m
  6. 1927Enters the general omnibus passenger road transport business
  7. 1930Shonan Electric opens Koganecho–Uraga and Kanazawa-hakkei–Shonan-Zushi
  8. 1933Mutual through-running of trains begins between Shinagawa and Uraga
  9. 1941Merges with Shonan Electric Railway and Shonan Hanto Jidosha
  10. 1942Merged into Tokyo Yokohama Electric Railway; the company is renamed Tokyu

1948–2002Independence from Greater Tokyu, and the earnings shift brought by Haneda

  1. 1948Separated from Tokyu as Keihin Kyuko Electric Railway with ¥100m capital
  2. 1949Shares listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
  3. 1954Omori Suijo Recreation, Kawasaki Tsurumi Rinko Bus and Keihin Department Store brought under control
  4. 1958Keikyu Kogyo (now Keikyu Fudosan) established; entry into property
  5. 1968Keikyu Aburatsubo Marine Park opens
  6. 1968Shinagawa–Sengakuji opens; through-running into central Tokyo begins
  7. 1971Hotel Pacific Tokyo opens
  8. 1975Miurakaigan–Misakiguchi opens; the main line reaches the Miura Peninsula
  9. 1983Keikyu No.1 Building (Wing Takanawa) opens in front of Shinagawa station
  10. 1989Keikyu Department Store made an independent subsidiary
  11. 1995Lots go on sale at Yokosuka Research Park (YRP)
  12. 1996Kamiooka Keikyu Building and Keikyu Department Store open
  13. 1998Tenkubashi–Haneda Airport opens; trains run into the airport terminal

2003–2024From spinning off the buses to the pandemic and the bet on Shinagawa

  1. 2003Keihin Kyuko Bus established in April
  2. 2003Road transport business transferred to Keihin Kyuko Bus in a full spin-off
  3. 2008Unionex brought under control; entry into supermarkets
  4. 2010Hotel Pacific Tokyo closes
  5. 2010Haneda Airport International Terminal station opens
  6. 2011SHINAGAWA GOOS opens
  7. 2012Elevation of both directions completed at Keikyu Kamata station
  8. 2013Keikyu Store and Unionex merge, consolidating the retail business
  9. 2019Head office moved from Tokyo to Yokohama
  10. 2021SHINAGAWA GOOS closes; a ¥27.2bn net loss is booked for FY20
  11. 2021Keikyu Aburatsubo Marine Park closes after fifty-three years
  12. 2024Keikyu Asset Management established
  13. 2024The former Murakami Fund group builds a stake, bringing activist pressure

Founding Story

1898–1947Fifty years from a pilgrimage line at Kawasaki Daishi to absorption into Greater Tokyu

Keikyu spent its first fifty years turning a pilgrimage line a few kilometres long into a railway that ran the length of the Tokyo–Yokohama corridor and on to the southern tip of the Miura Peninsula — renaming itself for that corridor three months after opening, then absorbing the Shonan Electric Railway that had built the southern half. What it could not survive was policy: in 1942 wartime consolidation folded the whole of it into Greater Tokyu, and the name it had carried for forty-three years went out of use.

The pilgrimage railway that ran the first electric trains in the Kanto region

In February 1898 Daishi Electric Railway Co. (大師電気鉄道) was incorporated with capital of ¥98,000 for the purpose of carrying pilgrims to Kawasaki Daishi temple[1]. Its founder Tachikawa Yujiro (立川勇次郎)[2] and his backers planned it as a short-distance railway aimed at pilgrimage demand, and in January 1899 it began operating between Rokugobashi and Daishi[3]. This was the first electric train service in the Kanto region, and it is recorded as the first electric railway in the Keihin (Tokyo–Yokohama) district[4]. The operating section ran only a few kilometres, yet the founding idea was clear in that the business was raised on a concrete source of demand — pilgrimage traffic to a place of religious assembly. Lecturing at his old university in 2023, Harada Kazuyuki (原田一之) explained how the Daishi pilgrimage that Keikyu had promoted as a deliberate strategy, on a line only two kilometres long, later settled into the custom of hatsumode, the first temple visit of the new year[5].

Only three months after opening, in April 1899, the company changed its trading name to Keihin Electric Railway Co.[6] and committed to a structure that looked ahead to extending its field of business towards Kawasaki, Yokohama and Tokyo. A business that had begun as a short pilgrimage railway turned early towards being an intercity railway premised on extension into the cities along its route, and the change of name stood as an external statement of that shift in management policy. As the term Keihin implies, the conception of becoming one of the main arteries linking Tokyo and Yokohama was already woven into the company name in the year after its founding. In December 1905 it completed the through line between Shinagawa and Kanagawa[7], finishing an electric railway network that joined the two cities directly.

Through to the Miura Peninsula: the Tokyo–Yokohama link and the Shonan Electric merger

With the Shinagawa–Kanagawa line completed in 1905, Keihin Electric Railway took its place as one of the main arteries of Tokyo–Yokohama transport[8]. In December 1925 Shonan Electric Railway Co. was incorporated with capital of ¥12 million for the purpose of building railways on the Miura Peninsula[9], and in April 1930 the Koganecho–Uraga and Kanazawa-hakkei–Shonan-Zushi sections opened[10]. Shonan Electric was launched as an independent company under separate capital, but it designed its route with a connection to Keihin Electric in view, and in April 1933 the two began mutual through-running of trains between Shinagawa and Uraga[11]. Through that through-running the two companies formed what was in effect a single transport territory, and by 1933 the prototype of an intercity railway network reaching the southern tip of the Miura Peninsula was in place.

In November 1941 Keihin Electric merged with Shonan Electric Railway and Shonan Hanto Jidosha (湘南半島自動車)[12], bringing the railway and bus operations of the Miura Peninsula into a single management body. The Shonan Electric brand disappeared at this point, and Keihin Electric completed a structure in which one company held the transport territory running from Tokyo to the Miura Peninsula. It had assembled a transport network binding rail and bus together, and a landholding base premised on development along the line, at the moment immediately before the country entered the war. It had already started a general omnibus passenger road transport business in August 1927[13], so diversification into a bus operation running alongside the railway had been accumulating since the late 1920s. Thus the prewar Keihin Electric expanded, in a little over forty years from its starting point as a pilgrimage railway, into an integrated transport company covering Tokyo to the Miura Peninsula.

Wartime consolidation: absorbed into Greater Tokyu, and the Keikyu name disappears

In May 1942, under the national policy of wartime consolidation, Keihin Electric Railway was merged together with Odakyu Electric Railway into Tokyo Yokohama Electric Railway, and the trading name was changed to Tokyo Kyuko Dentetsu — Tokyu[14]. The state was pressing ahead with route rationalisation under the Land Transport Business Coordination Act, and the concentration of the private railways of the Kanto region followed a course settled as policy. The Tokyo–Yokohama–Miura transport territory that Keihin Electric had built up over forty-four years was absorbed as one division of Greater Tokyu (大東急), and the Keikyu brand disappeared here for a time. This was not a decision of the company's own management: transport control under wartime conditions altered the very existence of the company. The history of the independent company of the founding period, raised by Tachikawa Yujiro and his backers, came to a break with wartime consolidation[15].

Greater Tokyu in the war years became a vast private railway operating within a single company a wide-area network spanning Tokyo, Kanagawa and eastern Shizuoka, holding the Keihin, Shonan, Odawara, Keio and Inokashira lines under one roof. In the postwar period the railway business was left with problems of regional management judgement and financial transparency, the result of an organisation swollen by the route consolidation carried out during the war. Wartime consolidation contributed in the short term to concentrating resources and making operations more efficient, while within the postwar social structure the need to break it up and restore independence surfaced early. The former management of Keihin Electric, involved in running the business as a division of Greater Tokyu under consolidation, likewise prepared with postwar re-independence in view. The separation of June 1948[16] therefore had the character less of undoing wartime consolidation than of returning to the independent management of the prewar period.

Read the full history in Japanese →

Notes

  1. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩
  2. 京急歴史館 創業期 (Keikyu History Museum, the founding period)↩
  3. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩
  4. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩
  5. タウンニュース (Town News, 31 March 2023)↩
  6. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩
  7. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩
  8. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩
  9. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩
  10. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩
  11. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩
  12. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩
  13. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩
  14. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩
  15. 京急歴史館 創業期 (Keikyu History Museum, the founding period)↩
  16. 京浜急行電鉄 有価証券報告書【沿革】 (Keikyu Corporation, annual securities report — corporate-history section)↩

References & sources

  1. Keikyu Corporation (annual securities reports), including the corporate-history section; consolidated results for FY20 (year to March 2021), FY23 (year to March 2024) and FY25 (year to March 2026); the results-briefing Q&A of 13 May 2024.
  2. Keikyu Corporation — the Keikyu Group Comprehensive Management Plan for FY2021–23 (May 2021) and the 20th Comprehensive Management Plan for FY2024–26.
  3. Interviews with Harada Kazuyuki, 2014, on the Keikyu Kamata grade separation and advance investment around Haneda, and his 2023 lecture at his old university on the Daishi pilgrimage and the custom of hatsumode.
  4. Interview with President Kawamata Yukihiro, 2024, on the three redevelopment districts around Shinagawa station.

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