Marui Group Co Ltd Q2 2026 Earnings Presentation Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Toshio Takahashi - Mizuho Securities Co Ltd - Analyst : This is Takahashi from Mizuho Securities. Thank you very much for the very easy-to-understand explanation. I have three questions. One is for Kato-san, and the remaining two are for Mr. Aoi. My first question is for Kato-san. As always, I would like to understand. I think that the retail business in the second quarter was doing very steady, but for retail and FinTech, what is the progress against your annual target? Are you slightly behind or are you a little bit ahead of the plan is my first question. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. NOVEMBER 11, 2025 / 8:00AM, 8252.T - Q2 2026 Marui Group Co Ltd Earnings Presentation My second question is for Mr. Aoi. I think that the card that supports Suki is great, and I think your explanation was also very easy to understand. The two questions that I have are you mentioned that this is not oshikatsu. I think it was explained in various areas. You mentioned about pet card as an example, you mentioned that this has a very high main card adoption rate. Towards the future, when you think of LTV, in what area would you feel a potential today? Maybe this is something that will become more open and maybe various ideas will be generated going forward, but I am sure that you have various antennas that you have allocated in various areas, so I would like to understand what your opinion is around this. My other question is -- which is my last question. Your FinTech and retail initiative is planned to expand in the regional local areas. As you work on this initiative, what is going to become necessary? Obviously you need to secure space, but are there any barriers in achieving that, or is this something that is rather easy to execute? You will be expanding to the local areas, so I am sure that liquidity of human resources is also something that you need to elevate. So when you move people, what are the barriers that you may be facing or do you not have any challenges in that area is my third question. Thank you.

Question: Toshio Takahashi - Mizuho Securities Co Ltd - Analyst : Yes, thank you. Hiroshi Aoi - Marui Group Co Ltd - President, Representative Executive Officer, Chief Executive Officer, President of Subsidiary, Representative Director So let me answer your second and third question. Starting with the second question. From the LTV perspective, what are the future attractive areas that I see, I think was your question. The Business that Supports Suki is centered around cards. We have events and merchandise, but the animation department was a triggering opportunity for us to expand this initiative and so I think it is animation-centric, character-centric, and games as well. But as you have pointed out, pet cards would be an example which is slightly different from oshikatsu, but for each individual, they are indispensable because it is like a Suki of your family member, and so I think there is an expansion around that. Animation, games, characters, and pets, and also the castle cards and museum cards. The difference is that are there any rights affiliated to this. So if there are any rights affiliated to some of the assets or properties, we do need consent or permit. And when we do events and when we sell merchandise as well, there are various restrictions that we need to overcome or consider as we try to generate business. Like museum cards, there are various goods that can be invented, I guess, for those that don't have any rights issues, like the animals in the zoo and castles as well. And so if we summarize all of those opportunities, anything that does not have any rights that are Suki, they can be cards or translated into goods. Like we are originally from retail and so we want to put a lot of focus on merchandise so that from a wholesale perspective and also from overseas sales perspective, I think we have an opportunity. I think Japanese culture is also very popular from overseas guests and so these non-rights REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. NOVEMBER 11, 2025 / 8:00AM, 8252.T - Q2 2026 Marui Group Co Ltd Earnings Presentation opportunities like the clay figure is also an example when it comes to museum-related ideas and so that is something that we would like to look into. The barriers that I believe we may be facing when we try to expand to the local areas we need to secure space. We would like to secure space. We have been working on store openings and so the real estate development division is already trying to collect various information so that we can negotiate for space. And so I think in the near future, I think there will be a promising opportunity. On the other hand, when it comes to resources, EPOS Card, we have been able to cover north all the way to south from Hokkaido to Okinawa. We have branches to acquire new users through the EPOS Card proposition. We also work with real estate partners to negotiate to do various business activities. So when it comes to transferring of people, moving people, and hiring people, we do have a foundation that we have been able to establish and so I do not see personnel as a big bar. But as we start working on these initiatives, we will be needing people that can be a touchpoint of new potential customers, and we also need to train people. So I think those are areas that we would like to start putting our efforts around and so that's something that we've started preparing from the first half of this year. I hope that answers your question.

Question: Junichi Kanamori - Okasan Securities Co Ltd - Analyst : My name is Kana Mori from Okasan Securities. I have two questions. First, it is more of a follow-up question to the previous questions regarding the investment of each of the businesses. Starting with the retail business, as of the first quarter, the waterfall chart for the operating profit for the retail segment and when I compare that with the materials today, the tenant and event both have exceeded the OP value. As of first quarter, the tenant annual revenue was JPY1.1 billion, but now it is JPY1.4 billion. And for the event, initially it was JPY600 million, and now it is JPY800 million. But you have mentioned that the expense as of the first quarter, you have felt that there is an increase in profit of JPY400 million from the second quarter to the fourth quarter, but there is a negative profit factor of JPY300 million that is now coming up, and so I want to understand how this is structured in your mind. And my second question is regarding FinTech. This is more of a clarification, but when you explained in the first quarter, you mentioned that you have pushed forward the timing of increasing the commission rate, but the securitization elimination is going to happen, and therefore, this is how the operating profit is going to be as what you have mentioned. You have not made much changes to that, but I think that we will be facing a rise in interest rates, and when that does happen, I don't think that you have embedded that into the commission rates. Next fiscal year, if there is a profit increase factor that is about JPY10 billion from interest rates, is that something that has not changed? Does that remain to be the plan, is my question. And another question for Mr. Aoi. The Business that Supports Suki, you mentioned that there is a lot of progress and the acquisition of main cards, and this may not be directly tied to this, but usually the main card increases. When this increases, you have mentioned about maximizing households in your past IR events as the main card increases. I think that you can increase your share, but what is it that they are paying with this card? I think that you had some breakdown around that and compared to the initial plan, I think this part is growing, but this part is not being used. I think if you have that information in front of you, we would like to get a sense of how that looks like.

Question: Junichi Kanamori - Okasan Securities Co Ltd - Analyst : When you say hedge, it would be the elimination timing of the securitization next fiscal year. There is a possibility that there may be some adjustments. Is that a correct way to interpret what you just mentioned?

Question: Junichi Kanamori - Okasan Securities Co Ltd - Analyst : Okay, understood, thank you. Hiroshi Aoi - Marui Group Co Ltd - President, Representative Executive Officer, Chief Executive Officer, President of Subsidiary, Representative Director And let me answer the third question. Regarding the main card translation within the Business that Supports Suki, as you have mentioned, Kanamori-san, we are trying to maximize share. So yes, they are tied with each other. So the definition of main card in the IR Day, the FinTech representative will be explaining this in detail, but roughly speaking, share is about 33%. The people who are using EPOS Card, we want them -- they are the main card -- we're seeing them as main card users. The 33%, so more than a third, in order to get people to use more than a third, then we do need to have them heavily use EPOS Card. But thanks to all of your support, we have been able to make progress because there is a rent payment that we have a warranty around and in other cards, this is not something that we can add as a service, but this is really contributing to the share maximization and so this is really driving usage and that has progressed and gaining share. On the other hand, the areas where the growth is sluggish would be smartphone contracts. This would be the contracts with the main carriers, and this would be a key expense of the young generation, as you know, but a lot of the key carriers are trying to capture this within their own ecosystem and so there is a difficulty in growing in this area. So that's a weakness that we are experiencing, but for other areas, I think that there is an opportunity for people to use EPOS Card, for example, insurance premiums or the non-life insurance payment. I think this is an area that we can serve. You can get points when you pay with our card and so the insurance companies, they don't need to burden their deposit to commission. The credit card company is going to burden that and so that is a win-win for both parties, and so the insurance premium payment is also what we're promoting with our card, and this is growing significantly. So there are new services like tax payment that we are trying to add within our service so that we can increase the share of usage so that we can combine this card usage with the main cards. That's it.