Koei Tecmo is already having a heck of a year thanks to self-published releases like Nioh 3 and its collaboration with Nintendo and Game Freak on Pokemon Pokopia. The company’s expecting record results in its upcoming financial report, but that’s only partially because of the games. The real winner here is co-founder Keiko Erikawa’s legendary investment strategy.
In a notice to investors, Koei Tecmo says it’s revising its forecast for the financial year, which runs from April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026. Full results should be provided soon, but compared to the previous forecast, the company’s expecting a 16.1% increase in operating profit, a 50% increase in ordinary profit, and a 53.7% increase in “profit attributable to owners of parent.”
The net sales forecast is actually slightly down from the original plan (by 4.9%), but it’s still set to be a record for the company. “Net sales, ordinary profit, and profit attributable to owners of parent are expected to reach record highs,” the notice says.
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That’s due partly to overperformance of “new titles launched in the fourth quarter and other titles exceeding initial plans,” but as the overall decline in the net sales forecast suggests, the games themselves are only part of the story. The massive increases in the other metrics are “due to significant gains in non-operating income and expenses resulting from active market management.”
In other words, Koei Tecmo has been making smart investments in the financial market. As Automaton notes, the company has become something of a meme among Japanese gamers for exactly this reason, as its financial results are often just just as reliant on its investments as its games.
Koei Tecmo’s investments are largely credited to Keiko Erikawa, who co-founded the company with her husband Yoichi in the ’70s. As of a 2021 interview with Nikkei, Keiko herself managed a massive array of investments in various tech stocks, covering sectors like AI, cloud computing, and security. In that interview she did, however, note that she regretted missing out on buying Netflix stock as it was on the rise.
Well, you win some, you lose some, I guess. But there’s a reason some gamers have taken to calling Keiko ‘Empress,’ and for a company best known for making video games, I guess falling back on the stock market is a good way to buoy yourself in a fickle entertainment industry.
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