UNITED,Inc. Q3 FY2025 earnings call

• Investment Business • Investment execution is ahead of plan: 36 companies invested in cumulative through the third quarter, exceeding the full-year plan of 30 companies, with total investment of approximately 1.1 billion yen. 8 new investments were completed in the third quarter alone. • Portfolio milestone: Portfolio company dely completed new listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market; United sold all of its holding shares, recording 1.433 billion yen in net sales and 1.111 billion yen in operating profit from this sale. As of the end of the third quarter, United holds 122 unlisted equities with a total fair market value of 7.0 billion yen. • Strategic framework: The business focuses on seed-to-early-stage startups, uses only internal capital for flexible investment, and pursues repeatable profit generation across two categories: Tech Investment (accelerating investment in tech-driven innovation startups) and Zenshin Investment (investing in startups that balance social problem solving with economic rationality, with United acting as lead investor and providing hands-on value enhancement support). • Inherent business trait: Quarterly performance will continue to have high volatility driven by the timing of equity exits.

• Education Business • Operational restructuring: Completed full share transfer acquisition of Bestco, a private tutoring chain operator, and moved Bruas from the AdTech & Content segment to the Education segment in the third quarter. Bruas and Kiramex will complete management integration starting from the 2026 March fiscal year, and Bestco will be added to consolidated results starting in the fourth quarter of 2025. • Current performance headwinds: Third quarter results were impacted by reduced development projects at Bruas and declining student enrollment at Kiramex's Tech Academy, leading to year-over-year revenue decline and expanded operating loss. • Growth strategy: Core competency is "maximizing learning outcomes via technology + human know-how", focused on programming education (B2C online school Tech Academy and B2B corporate IT training). The integration of Bruas and Kiramex will strengthen B2B capabilities, leveraging Bruas' cutting-edge technical expertise to enhance IT training content and generate new development opportunities. The acquisition of Bestco (13 consecutive years of revenue growth, efficient digital-driven operations focused on the Tohoku region) expands the business beyond programming education, and future expansion into additional high-growth verticals will be evaluated.

• Human Resource Matching Business • Growth driver: Revenue grew 33% year-over-year driven by expansion of general recruitment and designer-focused matching services. Operating loss shrank year-over-year due to top-line growth and prior year goodwill impairment. • Strategic priorities: Build a unique candidate pool including latent job seekers by offering diverse employment opportunities, and strengthen monetization via multi-faceted service offerings aligned with growing companies' hiring needs. Both active worker count and registered users for the Kasoku platform continue to grow, with further expansion targeted.

• AdTech & Content Business • Segment-level performance: Delivered consistent profit as a targeted growth segment, achieving year-over-year revenue and profit growth in the cumulative third quarter. • Fog Inc. growth: The company's online raffle service RAFFLE grew rapidly, with cumulative revenue through the third quarter already exceeding full-year revenue of the prior fiscal year. RAFFLE's competitive advantages include a broad client base across entertainment, media and publishing, data-driven planning capabilities from over 1,000 completed raffles, and end-to-end service delivery from planning to customer support.

1. Investment Business: Net sales decreased 24% year-over-year to 4.861 billion yen, with operating profit decreasing 31% year-over-year to 4.062 billion yen. It contributes 51.6% of total cumulative third quarter revenue. 2. Education Business: Net sales decreased 37% year-over-year to 0.847 billion yen, with an operating loss of 0.331 billion yen (a 0.257 billion yen expansion of loss year-over-year). It contributes 9.0% of total cumulative third quarter revenue. 3. Human Resource Matching Business: Net sales increased 33% year-over-year to 0.494 billion yen, with an operating loss of 0.118 billion yen (a 0.24 billion yen improvement in operating result year-over-year, with reduced loss). It contributes 5.2% of total cumulative third quarter revenue. 4. AdTech & Content Business: Net sales increased 21% year-over-year to 3.214 billion yen, with operating profit increasing 4% year-over-year to 0.238 billion yen, achieving both revenue and profit growth. It contributes 34.1% of total cumulative third quarter revenue. Total consolidated net sales for the cumulative third quarter is 9.415 billion yen (down 13% year-over-year), and total operating profit is 3.125 billion yen (down 37% year-over-year).

• Management upwardly revised the full-year 2025 March fiscal year consolidated earnings guidance, driven by better-than-planned performance from the two core businesses (Investment and Education). The upward revision specifically reflects the profit contribution from the sale of dely shares in the Investment segment, and the addition of Bestco's results to consolidated statements starting in the fourth quarter in the Education segment. Management expects the integration of Bruas/Kiramex and the acquisition of Bestco will drive re-acceleration of growth in the Education business going forward.

• The investment business has inherent quarterly performance volatility due to fluctuations in the timing and size of equity exits, which can lead to uneven year-over-year results. The education business faces near-term headwinds from declining project volume and student enrollment in existing operations, and integration of newly acquired and merged entities carries execution risk. There is no guarantee expected synergies from restructuring will materialize to drive the expected re-growth.

The provided earnings call transcript does not include a disclosed Question and Answer section, so no content can be summarized for this segment.