House Foods weighs possible Ichibanya sale or stock market exit
House Foods Group is weighing the future of curry-chain operator Ichibanya amid an apparent effort to simplify the wider group structure.
- House Foods Group, the majority shareholder of Ichibanya, is officially considering the future of the restaurant operator.
- A potential sale of Ichibanya, which runs the Curry House CoCo Ichibanya chain, is one of the options being explored.
- Another possibility under consideration is taking Ichibanya private by delisting it from the stock market.
- The review aims to streamline House Foods' business structure and enhance corporate and shareholder value.
House Foods Group Inc., a major Japanese food manufacturer that owned about 51% of Ichibanya Co., Ltd. as of February 2026, is assessing the future of the publicly traded restaurant operator.
People familiar with the matter indicated on Monday (August 31) that a sale was among the possibilities.
In a statement issued on Monday, House Foods confirmed that it was “considering all available options”.
These include potentially delisting Ichibanya and are being examined “with a view to enhancing corporate value and shareholder value”.
Ichibanya runs Curry House CoCo Ichibanya, also known as CoCoICHI.
The chain has about 1,200 restaurants in Japan and approximately 200 overseas.
Consolidated sales at Ichibanya increased by 7.4% from the previous year to 65.5 billion yen in the financial year ended February 2026.
Net profit moved in the opposite direction, falling by 19.2% to 2.5 billion yen.
House Foods acquired Ichibanya through a tender offer in 2015.
The subsidiary remained publicly listed after the acquisition and is now on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s top-tier Prime Market.
The sources linked the potential sale to an apparent effort by House Foods to streamline its group business structure.
[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
