Amazon.com's potential stake in istyle Inc., the Tokyo-listed beauty and cosmetics data company, fell from 39.30% to 9.29% after the US group handed back a large block of convertible warrants on August 13, 2026. The change surfaced in an amended large shareholding report lodged with Japan's Kanto Local Finance Bureau on August 20.
The mechanism was a warrant return, not a market sale. Amazon disposed of 43,604,700 units of istyle's 24th series stock acquisition rights off-market, selling them straight back to istyle at ¥72 per unit on August 13. That single trade, filed as a "short-term large transfer," is what pulled Amazon's potential voting power down by roughly 30 percentage points in one week.
What is left is more modest: Amazon now holds 9,541,984 istyle common shares, equal to 9.29% of the 102,661,967 shares outstanding as of August 13.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Holding ratio, previous report | 39.30% |
| Holding ratio, current filing | 9.29% |
| Shares held now | 9,541,984 shares |
| istyle shares outstanding (Aug 13, 2026) | 102,661,967 shares |
| Stock acquisition rights disposed to istyle (Aug 13, 2026) | 43,604,700 units at ¥72 each |
Amazon's stated purpose for the remaining stake is to maintain and strengthen the companies' Capital and Business Alliance Agreement, signed in August 2022, while also noting that it may sell the shares it holds for investment purposes. The filing lists a change to its holding purpose as one of three reasons for the amendment, but the supplied excerpt does not specify how the wording differs from the prior report. The 2022 alliance agreement also carries standstill-style covenants: for as long as Amazon keeps all the istyle shares issued on conversion of the companies' first convertible bond, istyle cannot issue new equity below market price, or grant other investors rights more favorable than Amazon's, without Amazon's consent. The filing lists a change to that material contract as one of its three reasons for the amendment, though the excerpt supplied describes the agreement's existing terms rather than specifying exactly what was renegotiated.
On funding, the filing states the remaining 9.54 million shares were paid for with ¥2.5bn of Amazon's own cash, with no borrowed funds involved. The report was lodged with the Kanto Local Finance Bureau by Morrison Foerster on Amazon's behalf, dated to the August 13 trigger and filed a week later on August 20.