KOURAKUEN CORPORATION's board voted on September 24, 2026, to buy every share of a sake brewer in Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima, making it a wholly owned subsidiary, and the two sides signed the share-transfer agreement the same day. The purchase price is not public: KOURAKUEN cited a confidentiality agreement with the sellers, and because the amount falls below 15% of net assets, Tokyo Stock Exchange rules do not require it to disclose the figure.
The sellers are not arm's-length. KOURAKUEN's own representative director and chairman holds 60% of the brewery and also serves as its representative director and president; three individual shareholders hold the remaining 40%. KOURAKUEN already buys alcoholic beverages from the brewery, though the two companies had no capital relationship before this deal.
The stated rationale is retail expansion. KOURAKUEN runs 358 domestic restaurants, including franchised locations, as of the end of June 2026, and is pursuing a mid-term plan through the fiscal year ending March 2029 while preparing a new factory to support a target of 500 stores. Its outlets have concentrated on roadside sites and shopping-center food courts across the Tohoku and Kanto regions; management now wants to add a "station-front" format, and it says buying the brewery is an important factor in its alcohol-product strategy for those new stores.
The brewery, founded in 1718, reported total assets of ¥451mn for the year to June 2026, up slightly from ¥449mn a year earlier, while revenue fell to ¥351mn from ¥357mn; ordinary profit fell to ¥48mn from ¥78mn.
The share transfer is scheduled for October 30, 2026, not yet completed, and KOURAKUEN says the effect on the year ending March 2027 will be minor.