Mitsubishi Logistics agreed to buy all of Hankyu Hanshin Express, the international freight arm of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, for 120.11 billion yen, the Tokyo-based warehouse operator said Oct. 30. Including an estimated 1.23 billion yen in advisory fees, the deal costs about 121.3 billion yen.

The deal folds a large air-freight forwarder into a company best known for warehouses, port operations and ocean shipping. For shippers in Asia, it creates a bigger Japanese rival to the established forwarders handling cargo between Japan, Southeast Asia, India and North America, the regions Mitsubishi Logistics named as its growth targets. Its overseas revenue share would rise to about 31% from 20%, on a simple combined basis, according to the company's presentation.

How the Hankyu Hanshin Express deal is structured

The sale runs in two steps. Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, which owns about 66% of Hankyu Hanshin Express, will first buy the remaining 34% from Seino Holdings, the trucking group that took the stake in a 2018 capital and business alliance. Mitsubishi Logistics will then buy 100% from Hankyu Hanshin Holdings.

Seino said in a filing that it will receive 25.48 billion yen for its 3,710 shares and expects to book a gain of about 12 billion yen in the year ending March 2027. The alliance ends, but Seino said its outsourcing contracts with Hankyu Hanshin Express for domestic trucking, warehousing and international transport will continue. Seino said the Hankyu Hanshin group had approached it with a plan to concentrate ownership in the owner best placed for the forwarder's growth.

Hankyu Hanshin Holdings expects a gain of about 75 billion yen on the sale in its consolidated results for the year ending March 2027, the company said in a filing. The parent said it picked Mitsubishi Logistics after a sale process involving several candidates.

Mitsubishi Logistics will pay with cash on hand and bank loans. Completion is targeted for the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, January to March 2027, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions in the share purchase agreement.

What Mitsubishi Logistics is buying

Hankyu Hanshin Express, founded in 1999 and based in Osaka's Umeda district, runs 36 group companies with 3,680 employees, 2,491 of them outside Japan, as of March 31, 2026. On a standalone basis it posted revenue of 45.45 billion yen and an operating profit of 713 million yen in the year ended March 2026, according to Seino's filing. That followed operating losses in each of the previous two years, including a 1.2 billion yen loss in the year to March 2025.

The standalone numbers understate its size. Mitsubishi Logistics used the international transport segment of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings as a proxy, because the forwarder does not prepare consolidated accounts. On that basis the business generated about 106.4 billion yen of revenue and about 2 billion yen of operating profit in fiscal 2025.

Its forwarding revenue of 91.6 billion yen was split between 47.8 billion yen from air freight and 43.8 billion yen from ocean freight. Mitsubishi Logistics' own forwarding business is smaller and leans heavily to the sea: 77.2 billion yen, of which 60.2 billion yen was ocean freight.

Combined, the two would have about 168.8 billion yen of forwarding revenue. Mitsubishi Logistics estimates that would rank fourth in Japan, behind three larger forwarders with sales of roughly 383.5 billion to 766 billion yen. The company said the two have few large customers in common.

The deal serves Mitsubishi Logistics' 2025 to 2030 management plan, which targets logistics revenue growth of more than 10% a year, including acquisitions. It arrives during a busy autumn for Japanese deals, including the contested take-private of Kakaku.com.

Goodwill drag before profit

Simple combined, Mitsubishi Logistics' revenue would have been about 381.3 billion yen in fiscal 2025 instead of 274.9 billion yen, with operating profit of about 26.4 billion yen instead of 24.4 billion yen. Overseas revenue would more than double to about 117.6 billion yen from 54.4 billion yen.

The company told investors the deal would weigh on earnings at first. Goodwill amortization will push the acquired business into a loss on a standalone basis right after closing, Mitsubishi Logistics said, and it aims for the deal to add to earnings per share within about three years of completion. Over the longer term it wants the deal's return on invested capital to exceed its cost of capital.

Mitsubishi Logistics plans to cross-sell air freight to its warehouse and ocean customers, and the reverse, and to expand in pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, electric vehicles and cold-chain cargo. It intends to integrate the two organizations over about three years while respecting the Hankyu Hanshin Express brand and its specialist staff.

The company said it will not yet estimate the effect on its consolidated results. It plans to publish an integration plan with key performance targets by the end of the current fiscal year in March 2027, and its earnings forecast impact with full-year results after that.