Tokyo, May 25, 2018 – Today, Rakuten, Inc., KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Kodansha Ltd., SHUEISHA Inc., Shogakukan Inc. (hereafter referred to as the “four publishing houses”), and Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as “DNP”) underwrote a third-party allocation of new shares to increase capital carried out by Oak. Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as “Oak”), a company that sells publications on commission. This will bring Rakuten’s investment ratio in Oak to 51.0%, making the company a Rakuten subsidiary.
In November 2014, Rakuten took a capital stake in Oak (formerly Osakaya Co., Ltd.) together with the four publishing houses and DNP. Since then Rakuten has participated in running the company as its largest shareholder (35.19%).
Moving forward, the Rakuten, the shareholders, and Oak will continue working to further strengthen the alliance between the content of the four publishing houses, the logistical infrastructure of DNP, and network of bookstores retained by Oak as well as leveraging the membership base and IT infrastructure of the Rakuten Group in order to create synergy over a wide range of business areas.
Specifically, they will continue promoting the creation of a new ecosystem that support the sale of books in bookstores. For this, it will make use of the Rakuten Point Card, a shared point card whose adoption Rakuten is already promoting at bookstores throughout Japan. They will also harness the Readee PLUS+ smartphone app that delivers convenient information on campaigns from bookstores to users that Rakuten began offering on May 8, along with digital signage linked with the app.
Rakuten will strengthen its partnership with the other shareholder companies and roll out a variety of different measures via Oak in order to stabilize book distribution infrastructure and contribute to the further development of the publication distribution industry.
The investment ratios following the increase in capital and the company’s new management structure are listed below.
Investment ratios:
Rakuten, Inc. 51.0%
KADOKAWA CORPORATION 9.5%
Kodansha Ltd. 9.5%
SHUEISHA Inc. 9.5%
Shogakukan Inc. 9.5%
Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. 9.5%
OSS Co., Ltd. 1.6%
Executive members:
Chairman of the Board Kazuhiko Kasahara (Rakuten)
Representative Director Tatsuya Hattori (Rakuten)
Executive Director Koichi Kawamura (Rakuten)
Director Akira Kaneda (NIPPAN)
Director Shinichiro Hirano (Rakuten)
Director Koichi Sekiya (KADOKAWA)
Director Takaya Sato (Shogakukan)
Auditor Hiroshi Takahashi (Rakuten)
Auditor Nobuyuki Yoshitomi (Kodansha)
Auditor Hideaki Hayashi (SHUEISHA)
Auditor Hideomi Zaizen (DNP)
Overview of Oak. Co., Ltd.
Trade name: Oak. Co., Ltd.
Addresses:
(Osaka Headquarters) Osaka Fukushima Central Building 1F / 2F, 1-11-19 Sagisu, Fukushima-ku, Osaka
(Tokyo Headquarters) Wajun Building 6F / 7F, 2-22-2 Koishikawa, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo
Business Commencement Date: April 1, 2016
Business description: Sales of publications on commission