At its FY2026 first-half results briefing, Ceres highlighted growth in its points business and outlined plans to allocate the cash generated from the sale of its bitbank shares to shareholder returns and growth investment. First-half revenue was ¥18.76 billion and operating profit was ¥2.3 billion, while goodwill amortization and other factors weighed on earnings.
On a consolidated basis, first-half revenue was ¥18.76 billion, operating profit was ¥2.3 billion and ordinary profit was ¥1.968 billion, all substantially above the year-earlier period. On a standalone second-quarter basis, however, operating profit fell 5% and ordinary profit fell 43%, reflecting deterioration in bitbank's equity-method investment gains and losses.
The points business generated revenue of ¥14.0 billion, up 60.9% year on year, and operating profit of ¥4.0 billion, 1.9 times the year-earlier level. The D2C and financial businesses were loss-making and showed signs of improvement, respectively. Moppy's membership reached 6.96 million, up 15% year on year, while transaction volume on the company's ASP, the Ad Track affiliate marketing platform, reached ¥9.1 billion cumulatively in the first half.
The sale of bitbank was valued at approximately ¥8.6 billion, with after-tax cash proceeds expected to be approximately ¥7.4 billion. The company announced plans to allocate about half of this amount to shareholder returns, increase the annual dividend 1.5 times from ¥60 to ¥90, and expand share buybacks to a maximum of ¥2.5 billion.
The full-year outlook was revised upward to revenue of ¥37.0 billion, operating profit of ¥3.7 billion, ordinary profit of ¥3.3 billion, net income of ¥6.0 billion and EBITDA of ¥10.4 billion. The company explained that the gain on the sale of bitbank would be recorded as an extraordinary gain, while the second-half outlook was based on keeping the existing assumptions unchanged.
Under its 2030 medium-term plan, the company aims for revenue of ¥60.0 billion, EBITDA of ¥12.0 billion and ROE of at least 15%, and plans to optimize its portfolio around the sustainable growth of the points business and the expansion of Labor.