Daiwa Motor Transportation, the Tokyo taxi and hire-car operator whose property arm now outperforms its cabs, is selling a near-tenth stake to homebuilder Daiwa House Industry. The board agreed on September 9 to issue 490,100 new shares to Daiwa House at ¥2,040 apiece, raising ¥999.8mn gross and about ¥987.8mn after issuance costs. Once the shares settle on September 25, Daiwa House will hold 9.76% of the enlarged share count, overtaking the company's previous largest shareholder, an individual holder whose stake falls to 8.45%.
| Feature | Value |
|---|---|
| New shares issued | 490,100 |
| Issue price | ¥2,040 per share |
| Gross proceeds | ¥999.8mn |
| Net proceeds | ¥987.8mn |
| Daiwa House post-allotment stake | 9.76% |
| Voting-rights dilution | 10.85% |
| Payment date | September 25, 2026 |
Existing shareholders absorb a 9.34% dilution in ownership and a steeper 10.85% cut to voting rights. The company argues the long-term payoff outweighs the near-term hit.
Where the money goes
The proceeds are earmarked for renovating 11 rental properties the company already owns, buildings between 13 and 41 years old, at an estimated ¥250mn a year from October 2026 through June 2030. That responds to a squeeze the company describes plainly: rising interest costs have eaten into the cash available for property upkeep. After repaying a ¥4.2bn asset-backed loan on March 31, 2026 with a new ¥3bn syndicated term loan, cash on hand stood at ¥3.13bn.
Property is now doing the heavy lifting for the group. In the fiscal year to March 2026, the real estate segment posted a 60.4% operating margin on sales of ¥1.05bn, up from 55.0% a year earlier, while the core passenger-transport business, still grappling with driver shortages and fuel costs, managed only a 2.4% margin on ¥14.8bn of sales.
The Ginza angle
The alliance's most concrete asset is a plot in Ginza 1-chome, Chuo-ku, where the company kept its head office until 2010. Daiwa House is one of several developers the company canvassed since 2022 over how to redevelop the site. It has now settled on a scheme in which it leases the land to Daiwa House rather than developing the site itself, collecting rent while Daiwa House bears the cost and risk of building and running whatever goes up. Construction is targeted to begin in April 2027; ground has not yet broken. Talks continue on other ageing properties the company has not yet named for redevelopment.
Price terms, and what's still open
The ¥2,040 issue price matches the September 8 closing price and carries premiums of 3.40% over the past month's average, 22.01% over three months and 37.00% over six months, terms the company's auditors, including two outside auditors, judged not unduly favorable to Daiwa House. Daiwa House has committed to holding the stake long-term and to notify the company if it sells any of it within two years.
What the deal means for the bottom line is still an open question. The company says the impact on its consolidated results for the year to March 2027 remains under review, with any forecast revision to follow separately.