Lion Corporation, the Tokyo-based maker of Clinica toothpaste and Top laundry detergent, told Japan's financial regulator that operating profit for the six months to June 2026 rose 54.7% from a year earlier to ¥20.7bn, on sales up 8.7% to ¥216.8bn. The company's representative director and president signed a separate statutory confirmation letter the same day, filed alongside the half-year report, attesting that its contents were properly stated under Japan's financial instruments law and flagging no special matters.
The headline profit jump is bigger than it looks. Lion's own "business profit" measure, which strips out one-off items and is the figure the board actually uses to judge operating performance, rose a more modest 21.3% to ¥15.3bn. The gap between the two numbers comes largely from a ¥7.016bn gain on selling two chemical subsidiaries, Lion Specialty Chemicals and its Indonesian unit PT. Ipposha Indonesia, to AP88, a special-purpose company set up by a fund that Advantage Partners provides services to. The sale, which closed at the end of June, brought in ¥17.439bn in cash.
| Metric | H1 2025 | H1 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net sales | ¥199.5bn | ¥216.8bn | +8.7% |
| Operating profit | ¥13.4bn | ¥20.7bn | +54.7% |
| Business profit (Lion's core measure) | ¥12.6bn | ¥15.3bn | +21.3% |
| Profit attributable to owners | ¥9.6bn | ¥10.8bn | +12.9% |
Underneath the divestment gain, the operating businesses did grow. Sales in Lion's overseas segment, which spans Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, China and South Korea, rose 19.7% to ¥100.9bn, and segment profit nearly doubled to ¥5.3bn. Domestically, oral-care sales rose 9.6% to ¥40.5bn on the strength of a reformulated Systema toothpaste, while the industrial-products segment, which sells rubber additives and conductive carbon, fell 3.9%. In January, Lion completed the acquisition of Australia's PNB Consolidated Pty Ltd, owner of the natural skincare brand Sukin, for ¥14.389bn, taking full ownership as part of a push to build the brand into a core Asian beauty line.
The company also raised its interim dividend to ¥17.00 per share from ¥15.00 a year earlier, a decision its board made on August 7 for shareholders of record at the end of June, payable from September 2. Lion said Middle East tensions pushed up costs for some raw materials during the period but did not quantify the impact, and noted no new business risks emerged during the half. The confirmation letter itself carries no additional financial detail: it is a short, legally required attestation filed alongside the half-year report, not a source of new figures.