IHI's Real Record Hides Behind a Property Sale

The Bank of Japan released the minutes of its June 15-16 policy meeting on August 5, and the most striking line has nothing to do with rates: Governor Kazuo Ueda did not attend. Deputy Governor Ryozo Himino chaired in his place, and Ueda submitted a written opinion through the chairman rather than take part in the discussion himself, a mechanism the Policy Board's own rules allow.

What to watch: The substance stayed on script — the Bank kept trimming bond purchases, holding the taper at roughly ¥2.7tn a month, and left the overnight call rate parked just above 0.72%. The absence, not the policy, is what will get talked about at trading desks this week.

Japan's Financial Services Agency will dissolve its Comprehensive Policy Bureau and Supervisory Bureau, rebuilding them into a Banking and Securities Supervisory Bureau and an Asset Management and Insurance Supervisory Bureau, effective August 7. The split separates deposit-taking and market-intermediary oversight from the funds, pensions and insurance side of the agency's work.

What changed: The agency is also carving out a standalone division for cryptoassets and stablecoins, a first for the FSA's organizational chart.

Why it matters: Firms with pending filings or supervisory relationships need to track which new bureau now handles their business; the agency frames the split as part of a broader push to position Japan as an asset-management hub while keeping pace with digital-finance developments.

Omron raised its full-year profit target 29% after a first quarter in which AI-linked chip and data-center orders sharply lifted operating profit at its industrial-automation unit. The Kyoto-based sensor and controls maker now expects operating profit of ¥80.0bn for the year to March 2027, up from an initial plan of ¥62.0bn, and lifted its revenue target to ¥880.0bn from ¥820.0bn and net profit forecast to ¥40.5bn from ¥27.5bn.

Why it matters: Orders from AI semiconductor and secondary-battery customers drove the swing, giving factory-automation investors a concrete read on how fast AI-linked capital spending is moving through the supply chain.

Astellas Pharma's results for the three months to June 30 show a company running well ahead of its own annual targets: revenue rose 26.7% to ¥640.9bn, core operating profit jumped 55.6% to ¥221.4bn, and core operating margin climbed 6.4 percentage points to 34.5%. Net profit attributable to shareholders more than doubled, up 107.3% to ¥141.8bn.

The catch: A weaker yen added roughly ¥60bn to quarterly revenue, but strong sales of PADCEV and newer cancer drugs did the rest of the work — and management is still not raising its full-year forecast, leaving the question of how much of this quarter repeats.

Suzuki Motor's board delivered a case study in how one cost line can outrun everything else management controls. In revising guidance for the year to March 2027, the automaker raised its sales forecast to ¥6.90tn and net-profit forecast to ¥420.0bn, but cut its operating-profit target to ¥540.0bn.

Why it matters: Suzuki expects Middle East-driven raw-material inflation to outweigh an ¥80.0bn boost from a weaker yen and operational improvements — a reminder that currency tailwinds and cost-cutting can still lose to commodity swings tied to geopolitics.

Subaru's revenue rose to ¥1.25tn in the quarter to June 2026, from ¥1.21tn a year earlier, but operating profit fell ¥33.8bn to ¥42.6bn. Sales incentives rose ¥24.9bn as the company leaned harder on discounts to move inventory.

The catch: A cut in the US auto tariff rate eased cost pressure by ¥32.9bn, but that relief wasn't enough to offset the incentive spending and raw-material costs. Management still calls the quarter steady progress toward an unchanged full-year target of ¥150.0bn.

Nippon Paper withdrew its full-year earnings forecast for the year to March 2027, telling investors on August 5 it cannot yet calculate the financial damage from two disasters that knocked out production on opposite sides of the Pacific: a fatal tank collapse at its Washington-state unit and earthquake damage that shut its Kumamoto mill.

What to watch: The withdrawn guidance pulls a ¥1.22tn sales forecast off the table, and the company has not said when a replacement number will arrive — leaving investors without a baseline until the damage assessment is done.

JFE Holdings told the Tokyo Stock Exchange on August 5 that it now expects revenue of ¥2.38tn, business profit of ¥90.0bn, pretax profit of ¥85.0bn and profit attributable to owners of ¥65.0bn for the six months to the end of September — more than double the ¥26.7bn it earned over the same six months a year earlier. None of those figures existed in the plan JFE published on May 8, when the company left the first-half line undecided.

The number: The new guide also fixes an ¥80 annual dividend, split ¥40 and ¥40, and comes alongside a roughly ¥45bn land sale at the Kawasaki steelworks — proceeds the company can now put a figure on rather than a placeholder.