Marui Group Co Ltd Ord

It is now time for Marui Group Financial Results Briefing for the second quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023. Thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedule to attend today's meeting. Today's presentation materials can be downloaded from our corporate website. Please refer to Overview of Performance in 6 Months ended September 30, 2022 and Future Direction. Today, we would like to explain our financial results for about 30 minutes and then take your questions. We are using a conference call system during questions and answers session. Please note that the recording of this presentation will be available on our website at a later date. Let me introduce today's speakers. Hirotsugu Kato, CFO, will give an overview of the financial results for six months ended September 2022 and progress of the medium-term management plan. Then, Masahiro Aono, President of Marui, and Yoshinori Saito, President of Eposcard, will explain the future direction of retailing and fintech segments. In addition to these three speakers, Ms. Kutsukake, General Manager of IR Department, will be available to answer questions. These are contents of today's meeting. First, CFO Kato will give an overview of the financial results for the six months ended September 2022 and the status of each segment.

My name is Kato. I will now present an overview of the financial results and the outlook. They are the contents I will be explaining today. Let me start with consolidated performance.

There are four highlight points for the financial results. As I explain in detail later, the fact that the fintech segment has maintained a high growth rate for the transactions and revenue offsets retailing segment, which has not recovered to pre-COVID level. As a result, total transactions have reached a record high and consolidated profit has almost recovered to pre-COVID level. EPS also reached all-time high due in part to our effective capital policy. Let me talk about main financial indicators. Total group transactions reached ¥1,892.4 billion, a record high for the first half, and operating income and net income have almost returned to pre-COVID levels. EPS also reached ¥67 in the first half, breaking a record high for the first time in three years. This is revenue and operating income by segment. Retailing revenue was down due to the reduction of private brand specialty stores, but operating income increased by 0.8 billion yen. Fintech recorded the first increase in revenue and profit in three years due to transaction increase. Though retailing profit level hasn't returned to the pre-COVID level, Fintech has steadily increased its profit every year since the start of pandemic. Looking at the operating income for each segment, compared to the year ended March 2019, which is before COVID-19, retailing decreased by 3.6 billion yen, while fintech increased by 3.7 billion yen, almost offsetting each other. Next, this is a breakdown of changes in operating income. Operating income for the first half of the year increased 1.3 billion yen year over year. Extraordinary factors include impacts from 1.1 billion yen of fixed cost while stores were closed, transfer to extraordinary loss and 0.3 billion yen of liquidated accounts receivables. Excluding these extraordinary factors, the actual increase in operating income was 2.1 billion yen, with increase of 1.9 billion yen in retailing and 0.7 billion yen in fintech. Eliminations increased by about 0.5 billion yen due to personnel expenses for the co-creative investment.