Air Water Inc. (TSE Prime and Sapporo, code 4088) is putting every company in its consolidated group through a single screen: does it fit the group's strategy, does it perform financially, and does its governance hold up. The company disclosed the review on September 17, 2026, describing it as the concrete version of the "group-wide strategy review," one of four pillars in a recurrence-prevention plan built after an improper accounting case. The other three pillars, corporate-culture change, governance reform, and rebuilding management infrastructure and internal controls, are already underway.
Businesses that Air Water judges would grow better under what the company calls a "best owner" will be transferred "promptly," management says. The disclosure names no specific unit for sale and attaches no value to the program: this is a screening framework the company has set out, not a list of pending deals.
Three businesses survive the cut as priorities. Industrial gas stays the group's growth engine, with reinvestment aimed at semiconductor-linked demand and overseas operations, including India and North America. Medical and agriculture and food businesses are framed as carrying a "social mission" and will be narrowed toward areas where Air Water's strengths apply, with the goal of stabilizing group earnings.
The roadmap runs in three stages. From fiscal 2026 through fiscal 2028, Air Water will execute the portfolio changes and rebuild what it calls its "earning power" through selection and concentration. From 2028 through 2030, the plan shifts to accelerating growth in the core businesses, domestic industrial gas including semiconductor supply, overseas industrial gas in India and North America, medical, and agriculture and food, while working to recover returns on existing investments. After 2030, the company says it wants to create new value starting from customer problems, though it offers no specifics yet for that phase.
On capital, Air Water says operating cash flow will fund maintenance and renewal spending, new growth investment, and the ordinary dividend. Cash generated from selling or restructuring businesses is earmarked separately: the company plans to use it for "flexible additional returns" to shareholders, balanced against growth spending and balance-sheet health. Management frames its target operating principle for fiscal 2030 as prioritizing profitability and financial soundness over revenue scale, alongside shareholder returns; the specific KPI figures from the accompanying chart are not detailed in this account.
The test for this plan is not the announcement itself but what happens next: which subsidiaries get sold, at what price, and how quickly the promised "flexible additional returns" materialize once a deal closes.