ITOCHU Corporation (ITOCY) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Prepared Remarks Transcript

2025-11-11 16:11:32 ET

ITOCHU Corporation (ITOCY) Q2 2026 Earnings Call November 6, 2025 7:00 PM EST

Company Participants

Keita Ishii - President, COO, Chief Strategy Officer & Representative Director

Presentation

Keita Ishii
President, COO, Chief Strategy Officer & Representative Director ...

Good morning, everyone. I am President Ishii. Thank you very much for joining us today. I will explain 3 highlights from our first half business results announcement, solid earnings progress, dividend increase and share split. Please refer to Page 2 of the FY 2025 first half business results summary presentation materials released on November 5.

The first point is the progress of financial results for FY 2025. Consolidated net profit for the first half reached JPY 500.3 billion, an increase of JPY 61.8 billion year-on-year, reaching a record high level. While extraordinary gains from asset replacements contributed, our strong performance was primarily driven by the robust results in non-resource sector, which is one of our key strengths. Progress toward the full year forecast of JPY 900 billion has reached 56%, exceeding our initial expectations and has been demonstrating steadily.

Regarding the full year consolidated net profit forecast, there is no change from the initial announcement. It remains at JPY 900 billion. However, we have revised our full year core profit forecast to a range from JPY 800 billion to JPY 820 billion. At the beginning of the fiscal year, our core profit plan was set as a broad range from JPY 770 billion to JPY 850 billion. However, given the steady progress in the first half, we have raised upward the lower limit of this range.

Regarding the forecast by segment, we have revised forecast downward for Metals & Minerals due to difficult circumstances in the first half. On the other hand, we have revised the forecast upward for Textile, Food, ICT & Financial Business, The 8th and Others. All these upwardly revised segments belong to non-resource sector, particularly in consumer-related businesses, which are among our key strengths. This demonstrates that profitability in these businesses continues to steadily increase with core profit accumulating solidly.

In addition, while the outlook for reciprocal tariffs was uncertain at the beginning of the fiscal year, the situation settled at a manageable level in September, and we expect a recovery in transactions in the second half. One negative factor is the ongoing price declines caused by dumping exports from China, which has excess production capacity. The extent to which this will continue requires close monitoring.

The second point is shareholder returns. At the beginning of the fiscal year, while we recognized market expectations for dividend increase, our initial plan for dividend per share was JPY 200 as same as the previous fiscal year. This decision reflected the highly uncertain business environment at the time, which included undetermined U.S. tariff policies and more uncertainties than usual. However, as I mentioned earlier, as the outlook regarding tariffs gradually became clearer and overall uncertainty began to subside, our first half results also showed steady progress. With solid accumulation of core profit, particularly in non-resource sectors, we decided to increase the dividend per share by JPY 10, resulting in JPY 210 for the 11 consecutive years of dividend increases with confidence in our profit growth.

The third point is share split. We plan to conduct a share split of our common shares at a ratio of 1:5 with the effective date set for January 1, 2026. While a share split does not inherently enhance corporate value, we have carefully considered this matter over time. As Japan government promotes Japan as a leading asset management center, the Tokyo Stock Exchange is recommending share splits to lower investment units and thereby broaden the investor base, including individual investors. Respecting this recommendation, we decided to implement a 5-for-1 share split with the hope that it will encourage more people to become shareholders and in turn, further support the increasing of our corporate value. Through this share split, we strive to embody the spirit of Sampo-yoshi. Good for shareholders, good for ITOCHU, good for society, in the stock market as well. We hope that even more people will become fans of ITOCHU as a result.

That concludes with my explanation of the highlights.

Next, I will explain the other 2 points, our robust core profit base and the status of turnarounds in businesses facing challenges. Regarding core profit for the first half, please refer to the slide currently being displayed. In resource sector, persistently low prices have continued to weigh on results as has been the case for other companies. This has been especially notable in coking coal, where core profit declined more than anticipated. Additionally, the ongoing delay in the production recovery of our Australian coking coal project since the end of last year has placed further pressure on earnings.

Meanwhile, in non-resource sector, the impact of the Trump administration's tariff policies, whose outcome remained uncertain until September, led to export adjustments, especially in vehicles and machinery destined for the United States, resulting in continued instability. Additionally, our pulp business in Finland also experienced sluggish performance.

Regarding situations of these 2 turnarounds and businesses facing challenges, I will explain later. Despite these circumstances, our domestic reliable group companies, one of ITOCHU's key strengths, made a significant contribution to the accumulation of core profit during the first half. As shown in the slide, core profits in non-resource sector have continued to accumulate steadily, reaching a record high in the first half following strong performance in the first quarter. For core profits in non-resource sector, the proportion of our domestic group companies generating profits of JPY 2 billion or more has been increasing and now stands at approximately 60% in addition to domestic core group companies and consumer-related businesses, such as DESCENTE, CTC and FamilyMart. Midsized group companies with profit levels between JPY 2 billion and JPY 10 billion are also steadily strengthening their earnings power year after year.

Next, please refer to Page 17. Over the past few weeks, CEO, Chairman, Okafuji and I have had review meetings with the presidents of approximately 40 group companies and heard strong reassuring comments from each of them who have thoroughly embraced ITOCHU's unique management approach, such as hands-on management, the principle of earn, cut and prevent and commitment-based management regarding their recent business performance and forecast for the second half. Even amidst global uncertainty at the beginning of fiscal year, our group companies have recorded 87.1%, near record for ratio of group companies reporting profits. And it is noteworthy that around 1/3 of these companies achieved record high profits in the first half.

I believe these results show the soundness and resilience of group companies. The company operates under the principles of frontline capabilities and hands-on management, continuously nurturing and refining our group companies. It is important that those who have learned management philosophy from CEO, Chairman, Okafuji and implemented management approach are presidents for many group companies and that they can communicate appropriately, understand management advice promptly and take actions quickly. Especially, our steady growth foundation consists of the group companies highlighted in light blue with profits between JPY 2 billion and JPY 10 billion, and we are willing to further enhance these group companies.

We believe that proactive enhancing businesses are unlikely to fail, precisely because we understand the industry and the business well. It is a highly feasible strategy that will support the company's sustainable organic growth going forward. Then we believe it is crucial to foster a stronger sense of unity and closer ties between headquarters in these group companies. This is achieved through unannounced site visit by CEO, Chairman and me as well as through exchange meetings with employees of group companies, seminars and networking events for top management of group companies. We will achieve reliable business strengthening and growth through the sharing of strategies, the allocation of necessary resources from headquarters and the steady execution of key growth initiatives such as M&A and business reforms.

Next, I will explain the status of turnarounds in businesses facing challenges. First, coking coal project in Australia. In March, the project transitioned to the first panel of the new mining site. Unfortunately, in April, production stalled after encountering complex fault and resulted in a 6-month delay in production. After that, the project finally managed to pass through that fault in September and have recovered production to normal levels, continuing shipments. The project plans to commence mining in the next second panel around mid-December, and the operation is expected to stabilize thereafter.

Next, let me explain the IFL, pulp business in Finland. Metsä Fibre sells pulp and paper products made from domestic log to Europe and China. However, the prolonged Russia-Ukraine situation led to the suspension of Russian log imports, causing supply and demand to rapidly tighten. In addition, driven by falling pulp prices and declining sales volumes due to sluggish paper demand in China, our largest market where the domestic economy and consumption remains sluggish, the first half yielded extremely tough results.

The combination of soaring log costs and sluggish sales led to production adjustments, causing production costs to surge sharply and developing into a structural problem. Locally, persistent efforts are being made to curb log prices, involving the Finnish government and outreach to log producers. In addition to implementing fundamental cost-cutting measures at Metsa Fibre itself, we are continuing negotiations to minimize future impacts, including diversifying sales channels and reviewing capital policies. We will promptly take these steps in order to minimize negative impact.

This concludes with the overview of our financial results for first half and the forecast for the full year. Our earnings are not derived from large-scale resource extraction, but rather from accumulating profits through each individual transaction and business, a collection of small profits. By combining hands-on management that works alongside Frontline and ITOCHU's distinctive management principle of earn, cut and prevent, we believe we can let profits of group companies solid and drive further growth. Such as DESCENTE and CTC, core profits have been expanded based on reliably predictable profits through the conversion from general investments to associated companies or from associated companies to subsidiaries.

Not every investment or business is guaranteed to succeed. However, by working together at the front line, we can gain insight into the people and industries involved. When anomalies are detected, we can correspond to solve them involving related parties at the earliest stage when the damage is still minimal. This is our hands-on management approach, and it is the feed of our frontline capability. We may encounter turnaround projects in the future, but we will resolve them without fail. We are determined to firmly achieve our committed full year forecast of JPY 900 billion and to steadily realize next phase of upward growth in ITOCHU WA.

That is all for me. Thank you for your attention.

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