Terumo's $610mn plasma-contract loss, Rorze's chip backlog and a food tax cut without deficit bonds

Katayama says food tax cut will be paid for without deficit bonds Japan's finance minister said the food consumption-tax cut will not rely on special deficit bonds, and that the roughly ¥3tn a year of cost-of-living spending in recent supplementary budgets will be reviewed.

What changed: Asked on October 6 to back up Prime Minister Takaichi's October 5 assurance that funding was no cause for worry, Katayama pointed to the outline the cabinet approved on September 15. Katayama said the government will work within a 'budget-compilation reform' framework: watch tax revenue, review spending and revenue together, and set a fiscal scale that lets the debt-to-GDP ratio fall steadily. The minister named a more visible 'Japan-style DOGE' effort, a thorough review of tax breaks, subsidies and funds, and a zero-based push for more non-tax revenue.

The catch: Supplementary budgets will be limited to truly urgent measures. Recent ones carried roughly ¥3tn a year for cost-of-living relief in each of the 2023, 2024 and 2025 fiscal years, and Katayama said the content of that spending will be revisited. The briefing gives no cost estimate for the tax cut and no start date.

All nine regions in the Bank of Japan's October Regional Economic Report describe their economies as recovering moderately, picking up, or picking up moderately, though some weakness was seen in part.

What changed: Three regions changed their overall wording since July. Tohoku moved to 'recovering moderately' from 'picking up', and Shikoku to 'picking up' from 'picking up moderately'. Kyushu-Okinawa kept its July assessment but attributed its residual weakness mainly to the 2026 Kumamoto Earthquake. The report marks changes in pace with arrows, so wording alone does not make a formal upgrade or downgrade. It is an assessment compiled for the October 8 meeting of branch general managers, not a policy decision.

Details: Business fixed investment is the firmest line: eight regions describe it as increasing and Kyushu-Okinawa as at a high level. Employment and income are improving in every region. Housing investment is the weak spot, described as weak in Tokai and Shikoku and relatively weak in Hokkaido, Kanto-Koshinetsu, Chugoku and Kyushu-Okinawa. Four regions, Hokkaido, Hokuriku, Kanto-Koshinetsu and Kyushu-Okinawa, say price rises still weigh on consumption.

Disclosed problem credit at Japanese banks did not grow in the year to March 2026, but the cost of dealing with it did.

What changed: The Financial Services Agency put claims disclosed under the Financial Reconstruction Act at ¥8.4tn at end-March 2026, unchanged from a year earlier. Within that, need-attention claims were ¥2.0tn, doubtful claims ¥5.3tn and bankrupt or effectively bankrupt claims ¥1.1tn. The ratio of problem claims to total credit was 1.0% for all banks against 1.1% a year earlier. The figures cover the 106 banks in the FSA's national-bank aggregate; credit associations and cooperatives are reported separately.

The number: Disposal losses were ¥535.5bn for the year, against ¥242.5bn the year before. The provision charge was ¥366.3bn, up from ¥61.4bn, while direct write-offs and similar items eased to ¥164.9bn from ¥177.7bn. For city banks, former long-term credit banks and trust banks, disposal losses were ¥315.2bn against ¥52.9bn. Reserves alone covered 28.0% of disclosed claims, down from 29.1%.

Bottom line: A flat stock alongside a larger loss line means the balance sheet and the income statement are telling different stories about the same year.

Rorze now expects operating profit of ¥53.078bn for the year to February 2027, up from ¥38.112bn, and has raised its planned year-end dividend to ¥28 from ¥20.

What changed: The company attributes the upgrade to strong semiconductor demand. Revenue is forecast at ¥180.007bn, up from ¥159.021bn, and net profit attributable to owners of the parent at ¥37.779bn, up from ¥27.809bn. For the six months to August 31, revenue rose 21.5% to ¥79.733bn and operating profit rose 42.4% to ¥23.096bn.

The number: Semiconductor-equipment orders in the half came to ¥120.54bn, 256.4% of the prior-year level, and the backlog stood at ¥103.863bn, 229.8% of a year earlier. Rorze credits a sharp rise in sorter and stocker orders from a North American memory maker, which it does not name, plus more orders from Chinese equipment makers. Applied Materials accounted for 21.7% of sales and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company for 14.6%.

What to watch: Rorze's own table puts the second-half requirement at ¥100.273bn of revenue and ¥29.981bn of operating profit, so the second half has to be larger than the first. The presentation lists long lead times on purchased parts as a risk, and Rorze has brought forward the start of its new Vietnam plant to the fourth quarter of 2027 from the first quarter of 2028.

Seven & i Holdings' operating profit rose 11.5% to ¥232.3bn in the six months to August 2026, even as reported operating revenue fell 2.8% to ¥5.46tn.

What changed: The revenue decline is largely a consolidation effect: Seven Bank and its subsidiaries left the group's consolidation on June 24, 2025, and York Holdings' subsidiaries on September 1, 2025. Net profit attributable to owners of the parent rose 2.2% to ¥124.4bn.

Details: Overseas convenience-store operating profit was ¥150.4bn against ¥109.9bn in Japan, where it was 90.2% of the prior year. At 7-Eleven, Inc., operating profit was $1,320mn, 145.8% of a year earlier, with fuel contributing $398mn of a $414mn rise in the company's profit bridge. At Seven-Eleven Japan, same-store sales rose 1.1%; the company points to up-front investment in in-store cooking equipment and next-generation store systems, plus inflation, as costs that outran sales.

What to watch: The company left its full-year forecast unchanged at revenue of ¥10.43tn, operating profit of ¥425bn and net profit of ¥278bn. Interim operating profit was 99.3% of its revised plan, with the domestic business at 91.3% of plan and overseas at 103.0%. On August 3 it bought 189,663,300 of its own shares for ¥400.0bn at ¥2,109 each.

Oasis Management now holds 9.48% of M3, up from 8.46%, and says it intends to raise its holding ratio by more than 5 percentage points within three months of October 1.

What changed: The Cayman Islands fund manager holds 64,352,600 shares, according to a change report filed on October 8. It reports on-market purchases on most trading days from August 3 to October 1, and the filing puts acquisition funding at ¥106.8bn, all fund money, with no borrowings.

The catch: The buying plan is conditional. It depends on M3's share price being at a level Oasis judges undervalued and on other factors, and the filing says purchases could fall after the three-month window. It is an intention, not a completed purchase.

What to watch: The filing says Oasis is already making proposals to M3 on delisting and on material changes in capital policy, including an outside party acquiring a majority of voting rights. Over the next 12 months it plans to make proposals on further subjects, among them removing a representative director, board composition, business transfers and dividend policy.