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Asahi Admits a Ransomware Attack Broke Its Financial Controls
A ransomware intruder spent months inside Asahi's Japan network, and the costliest damage was not stolen data: it was the brewer's own admission that its financial controls failed.
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Asahi's Ransomware Breach Broke Its Own Books
Asahi Group Says Ransomware Attack Broke Its Financial Reporting Controls
Asahi Group Holdings told the Kanto Local Finance Bureau on July 27 that its internal controls over financial reporting for the year to December 2025 were not effective, a rare admission tied not to an accounting error but to a ransomware attack that hit the brewer's Japan operations the previous September and exposed how loosely it managed who could get administrator access to its own systems.
What changed: The disclosure accompanies Asahi's delayed annual securities report, whose submission deadline moved to July 27 after the company won an extension approved in March. Auditors signed off on the underlying financial figures even as the company flagged the control weakness itself.
Why it matters: A material weakness in financial-reporting controls at a company this size is unusual on its own; pairing it with a live ransomware intrusion raises the question of what else a determined intruder could reach, not just what it already touched.
What to watch: Asahi's remediation steps and whether the delay draws further scrutiny as the company moves into its next annual reporting cycle.
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Money Managers and Policy Signals
Japan Cuts Capital Bar to ¥10mn for Fund Managers That Skip Client Custody
Japan's Financial Services Agency updated its Emerging Manager Program page on July 27, cutting the minimum capital and net-asset bar for investment managers that never hold client money to ¥10mn from ¥50mn. The revised rule also allows those managers to delegate full investment-execution authority under the amended Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.
Why it matters: A bank consortium has already earmarked ¥160bn specifically for managers with no track record, giving the lower capital bar a funding channel to test itself against. Separately, the FSA's update noted that 369 institutions had accepted the Cabinet Secretariat's Asset Owner Principles as of the end of June.
Japan Drafts Cyberattack-Reporting Duty for Newly Certified Fertilizer Suppliers
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Earnings Beats, Big and Small
Canon's Imaging Profit Jumps 39% as Industrial Equipment Lags in First-Half Results
Canon's first-half results, filed July 27, show a two-speed company: imaging-division operating profit jumped 38.8% while the industrial-equipment unit's profit fell by a third.
The number: net profit rose 9.8% to ¥171.2bn on the back of the imaging strength.
The catch: Canon revised its full-year forecast without disclosing the prior figures, leaving investors to guess how large the change actually was.
Tsuburaya Fields Raises Full-Year Profit Forecast Despite a 21% Quarterly Sales Drop
Quarterly sales fell 21% as pachinko machine shipments cooled from last year's hit title, but a China licensing rebound and sold-out amusement orders pushed Tsuburaya Fields to raise full-year profit guidance 18% and declare an Ultraman 60th-anniversary special dividend that doubles its annual payout.
GMO Financial Lifts Dividend as CFD and Rate Income Cover Weaker FX and Crypto
GMO Financial Holdings booked record first-half revenue and profit as strong CFD trading and higher deposit-linked interest income offset a slump in over-the-counter FX and crypto revenue, letting the company lift its full-year dividend forecast to ¥57.04 per share from ¥54.76 ahead of formal results due August 5.
AI Chip Demand Doubles Macnica's Quarterly Profit, but the Full-Year Forecast Stays Put
Operating profit at the Tokyo-listed semiconductor and cybersecurity distributor more than doubled in the June quarter, powered by AI-server chip demand and testing-equipment orders, yet management held its full-year forecast unchanged, wary of memory shortages and longer component lead times.
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Governance Under the Microscope
Tokyo Stock Exchange to Delist Showa Holdings Over Governance Failure
The Tokyo Stock Exchange will delist Showa Holdings (5103, Standard Market) on August 25, after concluding the company has no realistic path to building working internal controls.
What happened: the exchange notified Showa Holdings on July 24 and immediately tagged the stock as a security to be delisted, the formal status that runs about a month before a listing is actually pulled.
Why it matters: it's a rare case of the exchange concluding remediation simply isn't coming, rather than giving a company more time to fix its books.
RACCOON Holdings' Returns Beat Its Cost of Capital by Ten Points, Its Share Price Hasn't Noticed
RACCOON Holdings told investors its return on equity hit 18.7%, ten points above its assumed 8% cost of capital, yet its market value has fallen 82% since 2021.
The move: the Tokyo Prime-listed operator of wholesale platform Super Delivery used a business alliance with Advantage Partners as the occasion to rewrite its medium-term plan and publish a fresh self-assessment of the valuation gap. The tension: strong fundamentals and a collapsing share price rarely coexist this starkly, which is why the company felt compelled to explain itself.
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