Shareholders Return・Dividend Policy
As for profit return to shareholders, our group has the basic policy for deliberating and implementing profit return by balancing internal reserve through comprehensive consideration of the followings: business performance, financial status, future business and investment plans.
The Company's basic policy on dividends of surplus is either once per fiscal year, at the end of the year, or twice per fiscal year, including interim dividends. Decisions on these dividends of surplus are made by the Board of Directors for interim dividends and by the General Meeting of Shareholders for year-end dividends.
Dividends
・Notice concerning revision of year-end dividend forecast（Announced on October 31,
2023.）
In response to the request based on “Action to Implement Management that is Conscious of Cost of Capital and Stock Price” that was announced by Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc. on March 31, 2023, our group once again considered based on analysis of current situation and future projections.
Our group has been maintaining high return on equity. However, we deemed maintaining the current level of consolidated dividend payout ratio will lower capital efficiency in the future. Thus, we set out a policy to actively return surplus funds more to our shareholders. Specifically, we will raise the consolidated dividend payout ratio target from current 50% to 70%.
In accordance with the above policy, the dividend per share for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, which was forecasted to be 71 yen in the “Consolidated Financial Results For the Fiscal Year Ended March 31, 2023 [JGAAP]” released on April 27, 2023, is revised to 98 yen per share. Also, as for the interim dividend, we revised to 49 yen per share.
We will continue to maintain healthy financial position as well as to further improve corporate value, and determine the amount of internal reserve and profit return by taking future business expansion, etc. into consideration.
| Annual dividends (yen) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| End of Q2 | Year-end | Total | |
| Previous forecast (Announced on April 27, 2023) |
28.00 | 43.00 | 71.00 |
| Revised forecast | 49.00 | 98.00 | |
| Current fiscal year results |
49.00 | ||
| Previous fiscal year results (FYE March 2023) |
24.00 | 41.00 | 65.00 |
- Please note that the "Notice concerning revision of year-end dividend forecast and decision of dividend from surplus (interim dividend)" was released on October 31, 2023.
The figures mentioned above reflect these revisions.
Future policy（Announced on October 31, 2023）
We resolved to repurchase own shares for a period from November 1, 2023 to March 1, 2024, with a total repurchase amount of up to 10 billion yen and a repurchase of up to 5 million shares of treasury stock. If the maximum number of shares is repurchased, ROE for the fiscal year ending March 2024 is expected to be 53.1%. (For detail, please see the timely disclosure titled “Notice concerning repurchase of own shares (Repurchase of own shares under the provisions of the Articles of Incorporation pursuant to Article 459, Paragraph 1 of the Companies Act)” disclosed today).
If there are surplus funds in the future, we will consider the ongoing repurchase of own shares, taking into account the liquidity and stock price situation. Our goal is to maintain a total return ratio of generally over 80% on a 5-year average. In addition to increasing dividends and share buybacks, we will also explore fundamental initiatives to achieve capital returns exceeding the cost of capital consistently, to attain sustainable growth of the company.
- Net profit margins are calculated by dividing net profit by the Gross Merchandise Value (excluding other GMV).
- Please note that the "Notice concerning revision of year-end dividend forecast and decision of dividend from surplus (interim dividend)", ”Notice concerning repurchase of own shares " and "Notice concerning cancellation of treasury stock" were released on October 31, 2023. The figures mentioned above reflect these revisions.