SoftBank Asks Retail Investors for ¥1tn — Coupon Up to 4.90%

Marui Group's board approved a ¥50bn issue of five-year, zero-coupon Euro-yen convertible bonds due September 2031, and lined up a same-day ¥15bn buyback of roughly 5.01mn shares via ToSTNeT-3 to go with it. The terms: Nomura International is sole bookrunner, with Daiwa Capital Markets Europe and SMBC Bank International as co-lead managers; the bonds will list on the Singapore Exchange rather than in Tokyo. The initial conversion price will be set through bookbuilding, with a floor no lower than the current closing price.

Why it matters: Zero-coupon funding lets Marui bankroll growth at its fintech units, including credit-card arm Epos Card, without paying cash interest, while the matching buyback offsets some of the share-count overhang until any conversion happens.

Lintec used a same-day treasury buyback under ToSTNeT-3 to absorb more than 5.3mn shares that Nippon Paper Industries had been due to sell into the open market, cutting the size of a secondary offering announced only four days earlier. The buyback took in ¥29.4bn of Nippon Paper's stake directly, trimming the pending secondary sale to roughly 12.4mn shares and leaving Nippon Paper an estimated ¥26.3bn gain ahead of pricing due September 1-3.

The move: By buying the shares itself rather than letting them hit the market, Lintec controls the supply overhang directly instead of leaving the float to absorb a large seller all at once.

Arealink bought every one of the 1,630,384 shares and warrant-equivalent rights tendered in its takeover bid for Storage-Oh, a Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth-listed self-storage operator, lifting its voting stake to 84.14%. The offer ran 30 business days, from July 9 to August 21, and cleared well past the 1,291,700-share minimum Arealink had set as a condition.

What to watch: The parent-company change takes effect August 28, ending the previous controlling holder's major-shareholder status.

ANAP Holdings, the fashion retailer that has spent the past year building a bitcoin treasury business, is asking shareholders to approve a recapitalization that converts ¥7.6bn of loans held by two insider-linked lenders into new common shares, alongside a separate issuance of shares, warrants and a new non-voting preferred stock. The scope: ANAP's own filing states the preferred stock itself does not dilute existing common shareholders. The nearly 299% dilution figure the company discloses comes from the new common shares and warrants issued alongside the debt conversion, not from the preferred stock.

Why it matters: Shareholders vote September 29 on a package that hands significant new equity to insider lenders while diluting existing holders sharply, separate from the non-dilutive preferred layer.

Abalance Corporation told the Tokyo Stock Exchange it has called an extraordinary shareholder meeting for September 30, after its auditor issued a disclaimer of opinion on the year-to-March 2026 annual accounts and would not sign off on internal controls, saying it could not obtain sufficient audit evidence. The company also canceled the continuation of its regular annual meeting, which had been left open pending the audit outcome.

Why it matters: A disclaimer of opinion, rather than a qualified opinion, means the auditor found the accounting evidence too incomplete to form a view at all, not just to flag a dispute. Abalance has not yet settled its audit engagement for the coming year.

Advance Create, the Osaka insurer-comparison firm, told regulators a third-party investigation found improper accounting in past advertising transactions and software-asset capitalization at itself and its wholly owned advertising-agency subsidiary. The company will restate prior-year financial statements and expects to book roughly ¥524mn in extraordinary losses beginning with the quarter through June 2026, covering investigation and restatement costs.

What to watch: Advance Create has not finished tallying the full cost of the restatement, so the ¥524mn figure could still grow before the books close.

UK activist investor NIPPON ACTIVE VALUE FUND and two co-investors raised their combined stake in Noritz, the Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime-listed water-heater and boiler maker, to 11.65% of outstanding shares, up from 10.64% at the group's previous disclosure. It is the seventh amendment the group has filed on its Noritz position.

Why it matters: A rising activist position of this size gives the fund more leverage to press capital-efficiency and board-independence proposals, and the group has said further shareholder proposals could follow if talks with management stall.

Japan has launched a subsidy program on the government's jGrants portal aimed at promoting market adoption of hydrogen, ammonia, methanol and battery-powered vessels. The program covers equipment including engines, fuel tanks and fuel-supply systems for these zero-emission ships.

The number: The total budget is ¥15.1bn, but only ¥1.2bn of that is allocated for the current fiscal year.

Why it matters: Tokyo is trying to create early domestic demand for zero-emission vessel technology ahead of the rest of the world, though most of the funding is backloaded to later years.