Iyotetsu Group, the Matsuyama-based rail and bus operator, has become a top-tier shareholder in Shikoku Electric Power without saying it wants any say in how the utility is run. A change report filed with the Shikoku Local Finance Bureau on August 17 shows the company's stake in Shikoku Electric (TSE: 9507) reached 10.17% of shares outstanding, up from 9.16% in its previous disclosure. The reporting trigger was a string of daily purchases running from mid-July to August 14, mixing on-exchange trades as small as 24,300 shares with off-exchange blocks of up to 170,000 shares. Iyotetsu now holds 21,100,782 shares of the utility's 207,528,202 shares outstanding.
The buying was not cheap, and not entirely self-funded. The filing puts total acquisition cost at ¥27.81bn, of which ¥19.46bn came from Iyotetsu's own funds and ¥8.35bn was borrowed. The debt splits between a ¥5.00bn loan from Aozora Bank's Kansai branch and a ¥3.35bn loan from Nomura Trust and Banking's head office.
| Funding source | Amount |
|---|---|
| Own funds | ¥19.46bn |
| Aozora Bank loan (Kansai branch) | ¥5.00bn |
| Nomura Trust and Banking loan (head office) | ¥3.35bn |
| Total acquisition cost | ¥27.81bn |
The borrowing did not come free of strings. Iyotetsu had already pledged 5,000,000 Shikoku Electric shares to Aozora Bank as loan collateral in November 2025, and pledged a further 5,264,600 shares to Nomura Trust in February 2026. More than 10 million of its 21.1 million Shikoku Electric shares, roughly half the position, now sit as security against the same borrowing that helped buy them.
Iyotetsu filed as the sole reporting party with no joint holders. The stated purpose of the holding is "pure investment," the EDINET category that carries no disclosed intent to seek board representation or push for management change. That leaves a land-transport company founded in 1942 sitting on a double-digit stake in a regional power utility, funded partly on borrowed money and partly secured by the very shares it bought.