Isetan Mitsukoshi posts record quarterly profit, raises guidance and plans a stock split

Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings posted record profit for its fiscal first quarter (April-June 2026) and raised its full-year guidance, according to the group's own earnings disclosure — its strongest quarterly result since the pandemic recovery, driven by high-value domestic spending, inbound tourist demand and a jump in property income.

Sales for the quarter rose 3.8% year on year to ¥128.91bn, the group reported, while operating profit climbed 20.6% to ¥18.88bn, ordinary profit rose 16.7% to ¥19.93bn and net profit gained 18.5% to ¥22.32bn — all quarterly records. Real-estate income, covering leasing revenue from the group's store properties, rose 40.8% year on year, outpacing growth in retail sales itself. (Isetan Mitsukoshi's own investor-relations pages returned an access error to us directly; the figures above are corroborated across three independent Japanese financial-data services — Kabutan, Minkabu and Yahoo Finance/LIMO — reporting identical results to the yen.)

On the back of the results, Isetan Mitsukoshi raised its full-year ordinary-profit guidance to ¥83bn from the ¥80bn it had forecast, and lifted its dividend forecast for the year. The group also said it will carry out a two-for-one stock split effective Oct. 1, 2026.

The gap between the two growth rates is worth flagging on its own: operating profit grew more than five times as fast as sales in percentage terms this quarter, with property income the single biggest factor the group named behind that gap.

The results echo a pattern showing up across Japan's department-store sector this year: high-value domestic and inbound spending concentrating at the top end, while property income becomes a larger share of profit as operators lease out excess floor space in prime central locations such as Shinjuku and Nihombashi rather than running all of it as retail themselves.

The two-for-one split does not change the group's underlying value; it lowers the entry price of the stock and widens the pool of investors who can hold a full trading unit — a routine move after a sustained share-price run, and one increasingly common among Japanese retailers responding to the Tokyo Stock Exchange's push for better trading liquidity. Raising full-year guidance after only one quarter is a stronger statement of confidence than the ¥3bn increase itself suggests: the group is telling the market it expects the current pace of demand to hold for the rest of the fiscal year, not just the first three months of it.