DISCO guides one quarter ahead; ValueAct seeks to swap three Takara directors

Capcom says a third party gained unauthorized access to CAPCOM ID, the shared account customers need for its web services and some online games, and that part of the customer information held there leaked. The widest category covers 11,774,247 accounts worldwide as of 22 October.

What changed: The broadest category is email addresses plus account creation time, last login time, number of logins and the client IP address at last login. It is counted in accounts, not people. Of those accounts, 43 also had date of birth, gender, country or region, and nickname exposed. Capcom says credit card information was not leaked.

The catch: Login passwords were changed without authorization on 196 of the affected accounts, which have since been reset. The notice does not say whether those 196 overlap with the 43. Capcom has not confirmed a leak of passwords customers set themselves and is still investigating the extent of the impact.

What to watch: Capcom found traces of the access on 19 October and reported to the police and the Personal Information Protection Commission on 21 October. It warns that leaked email addresses could be used for emails posing as Capcom, and asks customers not to open links or attachments in them. Services and games remain available.

Japan's health ministry has asked doctors to stop starting new patients on avacopan, a vasculitis drug sold by Kissei Pharmaceutical, and, as a general rule, to consider stopping it or switching to alternative treatment for patients already taking it. Kissei set out the request in a notice dated 22 October 2026, after a ministry panel met on 21 October.

What changed: The panel heard the findings of a review of Kissei's written response to a reporting order from the health minister, which asked the company to verify the reliability of the international Phase III trial data and the drug's safety. According to Kissei, the deliberations confirmed there may be problems with the reliability of materials submitted at the approval review and found it difficult to judge that the therapeutic benefit outweighs the risks.

The catch: The panel added that the disease is a serious rare one, and that any change for patients already on the drug must be decided individually. Kissei earlier asked clinicians on 15 May to prescribe with caution and, on 21 May, revised the Japanese package insert for serious liver injury.

What to watch: Kissei says it is examining the effect on its results and will disclose it promptly if the matter will affect them. The notice gives no sales figure for the drug.

ValueAct Japan Master Fund, one of the funds managed by ValueAct Capital Management, has formally asked Takara Holdings to call an extraordinary shareholder meeting to remove three outside directors and elect three replacements. Takara says it received the demand on 22 October and will disclose its response policy once decided. The five joint filers hold 39,464,280 shares, or 20.01% of shares outstanding, up from 19.01% in the previous report.

The move: ValueAct says it does not seek control of Takara and is not asking for a share buyback, that the candidates are independent of it, and that the new directors would still fall short of a board majority. The candidates are a former JSR chief executive, a former golf-operator president and a former global chief financial officer of a Suntory spirits business. These are ValueAct's own statements.

Context: ValueAct's letter argues that the medium-term plan that ended in March 2026 met none of its financial targets, that return on equity fell to 4.6% in the last fiscal year and is expected to stay below 5.0% this year, and that bourbon whisky supplies more than 60% of consolidated operating profit. It also calls the board's approval of a tender offer for listed subsidiary Takara Bio value-destroying. These are ValueAct's assertions.

What to watch: The letter asks for a meeting within eight weeks of its arrival and a written reply by 6 November. Takara says it will examine the request carefully and will disclose its response policy once decided.

Pasona Group's board resolved on 22 October to tender all 1,440,000 of its circlace shares into an offer from HHH1, a Tokyo-based company that circlace says is owned through funds managed, advised or operated by Hillhouse Investment Management. If the offer succeeds, circlace stops being a Pasona equity-method affiliate, and Pasona expects a one-off gain of about ¥2.9bn in non-consolidated results and about ¥2.6bn in consolidated results for the year ending May 2027.

What changed: HHH1 is bidding ¥2,020 a share, 128.25% above circlace's ¥885 close on 21 October. Circlace's board endorsed the offer and recommended shareholders tender. HHH1 called ¥2,020 its final and best offer on 20 October. HHH1 plans to fund up to ¥9.2bn of equity from its parent, with no borrowing.

The catch: The minimum is two-thirds of the diluted share count. HHH1 also signed a tender agreement with TQUILA LIMITED, circlace's second-largest shareholder, covering 30.80%; on the offer's own percentages, the two anchor holders alone fall short of the 66.67% minimum.

What to watch: The results announcement is due on 8 December, with settlement starting on 14 December. If HHH1 falls short of full ownership, it plans a squeeze-out, and circlace would be delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth market.

Japan's Fair Trade Commission on 22 October 2026 recommended that Oji Container pay subcontractors for storing printing plates, wooden dies and metal moulds it had stopped ordering against. The commission found it left 140 subcontractors holding 9,610 items without paying storage costs, over a period running from 1 June 2024 at the latest to 26 November 2025.

What changed: The commission ruled the practice an improper request for economic benefit under the Subcontract Act as it stood before the 2025 amendment. By July 2026 Oji Container had paid 127 of the 140 subcontractors a combined ¥3.41mn after talks with each. The recommendation calls on it to pay the rest, to all 140, once the commission confirms the amount. The release gives no total for what remains and mentions no fine.

Why it matters: This is the second such recommendation in a year. An earlier one, on 13 March 2026, involved another cardboard maker, 132 subcontractors and 7,846 plates and dies. The commission, the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency and the economy ministry asked the corrugated industry's national federation to circulate both cases and end the custom.

Reader takeaway: Buyers who lend tooling to suppliers, their own or their customers', should check what sits idle and who pays to store it. The commission's leaflet lists metal moulds, printing plates, wooden dies, inspection gauges, machinery, jigs and tools.

The second application round for Japan's 2026 subsidy for hard-to-abate industries opened on 22 October and closes at noon on 27 November. It covers Project II, aimed at chemicals, paper and pulp, cement and similar sectors. The ceiling is one-third of eligible costs, rising to one-half for structural conversion, and the programme's own documents call those maximum rates, not entitlements.

What changed: Project II supports capital spending on fuel conversion, manufacturing process conversion and structural conversion. Fuel conversion has hard thresholds: in-house generating plant must reach at least 30,000 kW after completion, and an industrial furnace qualifies only if the grant sought is at least ¥4bn. Projects must be expected to cut direct (Scope 1) emissions by 50% or more around 2035. Chemical recycling and CCU need capacity of 40,000 tonnes a year.

The catch: Applicants must be Japan-registered companies with a project site in Japan, and face emissions-target and reporting conditions tied to the GX League and GX Future League. SMEs and firms with 2022 CO2 emissions under 200,000 tonnes may submit other emissions-cutting measures instead. Filing is electronic only, through J-Grants, with a government business ID login. Post, hand delivery and email are not accepted.

What to watch: Screening starts on 30 November, adopted projects are due to be named around late January 2027, and projects must finish by 31 January 2031. Payment is normally made after completion and can fall short of the approved sum. The programme gives no award total for this round.

Kanto Denka Kogyo raised its operating profit forecasts for both the six months to September 2026 and the year to March 2027, and said the full-year forecast assumes a boost from inventory bought before raw-material prices rose will fade from the third quarter. The revision notice is dated 22 October.

What changed: For the interim period it now expects operating profit of ¥9.4bn against an earlier ¥6.6bn, up 42.4%, on sales of ¥44.4bn. For the full year, operating profit is forecast at ¥14.6bn, up 29.2% from ¥11.3bn, on sales of ¥98.5bn. These percentages measure the change from prior guidance, not growth on the previous year.

The catch: The company credits specialty gas products, which gained from expanding demand from semiconductor customers, plus progress in passing on higher raw-material prices, cost reduction, and a profit lift from consuming inventory bought before raw-material prices rose. The full-year forecast assumes that last boost fades from the third quarter. The notice does not size it.