Director, Pearl Hill Advisors

Nicholas Tanner

Director

Pearl Hill Advisors

Equity Bottom-Up

<p>Last year IFRS operating profit came in at Y40.4bn (+73%) in the first quarter (3/17) and Y68.6bn (+39%) for the first half (6/17). This first quarter Rakuten made Y28bn (-30%) as the revaluation of Lyft boosted profits last 1Q. The recent (end June) revaluation of Lyft by 37% will boost 2Q profits by some Y20-25bn. We this expect first half operating profit to thus come in at about Y70-75bn, depending on how they allocate costs for their MNO project. This, we suspect, is higher than what the…</p>

Last year IFRS operating profit came in at Y40.4bn (+73%) in the first quarter (3/17) and Y68.6bn (+39%) for the first half (6/17). This first quarter Rakuten made Y28bn (-30%) as the revaluation of Lyft boosted profits last 1Q. The recent (end June) revaluation of Lyft by 37% will boost 2Q profits by some Y20-25bn. We this expect first half operating profit to thus come in at about Y70-75bn, depending on how they allocate costs for their MNO project. This, we suspect, is higher than what the…

Rakuten (4755) BUY Ahead of the First Half Results, Out on August 6th.