Kirin's ¥218bn Wellness Bet, Plus a Record Day for Earnings Guidance

INPEX's first-half profit rose 17.7% to ¥263.1bn even as revenue fell 4.6% to ¥1.00tn, after Middle East disruption cut crude sales volume by roughly a quarter. The company used the improvement to raise full-year profit guidance to a record ¥510.0bn while trimming its full-year revenue forecast, betting that a weaker yen, higher crude prices and steady Ichthys output will offset the lost volume.

The move: INPEX paired the guidance raise with a ¥140bn share buyback and lifted its dividend to ¥112 a share, returning cash even as its top-line forecast shrinks.

The catch: a near-quarter drop in Middle East crude sales is a real supply disruption, not a rounding error, and the guidance raise leans on price and currency assumptions holding for the rest of the year.

McDonald's Japan raised its full-year profit guidance on August 7 after half-year operating profit jumped 15.2% and same-store sales notched a 43rd consecutive quarterly gain. Pricing and store-efficiency gains outran rising ingredient costs in the first half.

Why it matters: forty-three straight quarters of same-store growth is a long run for a mass-market chain working through years of ingredient inflation, and it suggests diners are still absorbing price increases rather than trading down.

The catch: the revised sales outlook still trails 2025's total of ¥416.6bn, so the profit gain is coming from margin, not from selling more burgers.

Nishimatsu Construction's net profit for the quarter to June nearly tripled to ¥4.65bn, up 182% from a year earlier, as consolidated revenue rose 23.8% to ¥102.6bn and operating profit more than doubled to ¥7.0bn. The company attributes the jump mainly to improved margins on completed domestic construction work and higher profit from its real-estate business, not simply a fatter order book.

The catch: management left its full-year profit guidance unchanged at a projected 14.8% decline, meaning it isn't yet betting the quarter's strength holds for the rest of the year.

Sapporo Breweries laid out a four-year capital plan through 2030, raising its dividend-on-equity target to 5% and committing to roughly ¥170bn of buybacks and ¥80bn of dividends, after beating its prior 8% ROE target a year early. New 2030 targets include ROE of at least 8% (10%-plus over the medium to long term), annual EBITDA growth of 10% or more, and earnings per share of ¥80 to ¥100, up from a 2026 base of ¥51.

What to watch: ¥300bn to ¥400bn of growth spending spread across North American and Vietnamese brewing capacity, Asian distribution and domestic drinks investment, rather than one flagship project.

Nippon Sheet Glass posted a small net profit last quarter on yen weakness and automotive pricing, but the real news is procedural: shareholders have approved Apollo's ¥165bn equity injection and lenders' separate ¥140bn debt-to-equity swap, with the company still targeting completion in the second half of the year to March 2027 pending regulatory sign-off.

An internal audit at Sun* Inc. found cash at its Vietnamese subsidiary that was not on the books, and the company's auditor says it cannot finish reviewing the accounts before the deadlines for both the quarterly results and the half-year securities report.

Sumitomo Pharma filed a detailed rebuttal on August 7 to a short-seller report published four days earlier by Gotham City Research LLC, which had alleged an earnings-management scheme built around a ¥164.5bn dividend from the company's Swiss unit and a jump in receivables. Sumitomo Pharma said the report contains numerous claims that are clearly different from the facts, and noted that Gotham City Research disclosed a short position in the stock, meaning it profits if the shares fall.

Why it matters: the company is staking its rebuttal on specifics — it says the dividend and receivables movement were routine accounting, not manufactured earnings — rather than a general denial, giving investors concrete claims to check against future filings.

Seven Japanese government bodies, led by the Financial Services Agency and the National Police Agency, sent near-identical letters on August 7 to Google, Meta, TikTok's Japan unit, X Corp. and LINE Yahoo, asking each platform to tighten checks on advertisers after deepfake ads impersonating celebrities helped drive a wave of social-media investment fraud. The agencies want the platforms to detail their advertiser identity checks and ad-takedown responses by mid-October, then report results by March 2027.

The catch: the request is formal administrative guidance under the Administrative Procedure Act, not a legal order, and the letters state plainly it carries no penalties, so compliance depends on the platforms' own follow-through rather than enforcement.