Timee, Inc.

Timee, Inc.

9.05
USD
-0.25
(-2.69%)
936.65MMarket Cap
Dec 11Next Earn

Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptDecember 11, 2025

Operator

Thank you very much for joining us today. We will now begin Timee, Inc.'

s full year financial result briefing call for the fiscal year ending October 2025. This briefing, including the Q&A, is scheduled to last 60 minutes.

Please note that this briefing is being recorded and will be posted on our IR website after it concludes. Let me introduce our attendees today: Representative Director Ryo Ogawa, Executive Director, CFO Tomoaki Yagi.

Those two will be our attendees. Now let me explain about the materials.

We disclosed our earnings release and the financial results presentation material at 3:30 p.m. today.

Additionally, supplementary materials summarizing KPIs, financial figures, etc., in Excel format will be available on our website. Please review them as well.

Then Mr. Ogawa and Mr.

Yagi will provide explanations today. Let me introduce Mr.

Ogawa.

Ryo Ogawa

This is Ogawa speaking. Thank you very much for attending our session today.

Before proceeding to the financial results explanation, we would like to extend our deepest sympathies to all those affected by the earthquake that occurred in December 8th with epicenter in Aomori Prefecture. We will prioritize the safety and our employees and the business partners above all, providing necessary information and support.

If you have any concerns, please contact Timee's customer support. We sincerely hope for swift recovery and that safety for everybody affected.

Now let us begin our explanation for the full year financial results, fiscal year ending October 2025. This is the full year forecast.

From this, the 5-year, 10-year onward, what we would like to achieve is what I would like to explain right now. I think you might have already seen, but a lot of environment has been changing.

The article released on the Nikkei, this one showing on the slide, the essential workers' value has been reviewed in across entire the globe. This is basically what we're naming as the Great Transformation in the world, especially in this HR market.

This phase of the transformation, should we accelerate our business or are we going to slow down? We're going to see those businesses will be in two extremes, and we would like to be the first one to succeed.

Among this, our concept is the building the social bridge to connect people with opportunities, leading the way in the AI and robot era. A lot of the positions will be replaced by the AI.

On the other sides, constructions and the social care, these kind of industries supporting the people will be in demand. Bridging these industries to people is what we can take care of.

This is our intention to explain further what our intention is. Our big data that we have, I would like to explain a little bit.

We have a lot of trust data. Trust data, credibility-based, for example education, career, qualification, credit history, and also the future data, expectations obtained through Timee of the past data.

The trust coming from the past and also the future trust as well. This will be the expectation that we can expect from Timee.

For example, the number of the operation history and the good rating. Using this data, we're trying to provide the visibility into who are our trusted workers.

Bridging this to the business is what we can achieve. Our fly field, work through Timee and then they're developing the skills and experience, and after that because of that, we have that trust, the value that we can leverage and further utilize this cycle.

What we have explained so far is how to work through Timee, the spot work Timee itself. From now on, I would like to explain a little bit more, emphasize on how to utilize the data, the phase afterward.

We have a lot of data as shown here. Perfect attendance, no late show up, and what kind of workers we have, what kind of works, and also what kind of the qualitative data available.

We're trying to further motivate the workers' efforts, not just based on the workers' education and career, but what they can achieve in the future, what we can expect from them. This is the world we would like to create.

The building a society where accumulated trust is rewarded, people working on the spot work and then getting paid immediately, that's our core business. Not just that, but we're trying to create an environment where their accumulated data is rewarded further.

That's something that we would like to push from utilizing our business, leveraging our sales and other values we have as a company. As a result, what we have learned and then what we're going to target is shown here.

At this, the period, explaining this period and then full year, the revenue, sales, and also the profit, achieving this in the CAGR 20% and also the profit 30% is what we would like to achieve in the future. Depending on the phase, we have established company in the 2018 launching Timee, and we have established the foundation.

Even through the COVID timing, we have been able to diversify into multiple the pillars of the business to support the company. Although we experience a lot of competitors entering into this market, we definitely went through some defense phase, especially the past 1 year, but we have been able to prepare pretty well, I think, and now we're trying to move on to the preparation and then scaling up in the offense side, trying to establish the stable growth of the spot work and then trying to utilize the data we have into irregular growth in the future.

We have already been able to do this and further accelerate this effort. Showing these figures here, the field managers, three areas, and then the social care industry and Timee Career Plus.

Talking about the field manager, large location and a major logistics company, we're dispatching our employees and trying to manage the logistic operation of the our spot workers, and that's going very well. Social care industry, very important industry, we have been able to match the non-qualified normal workers and now moving on to the matching of the qualified workers.

That's being growing steadily. Timee Career Plus, which is our new business, and we have been doing this for about 2 years, and we have been steadily progressing to scaling up this business as well.

Growing of the business, we have been able to, very luckily, achieve the very high growth. I know that's our expectation, really our expectation.

The stock price, of course, we have seen a lot of fluctuation over the past 1 year. Maybe that might have caused some of the concerns, unfortunately, to the shareholders.

As a company over the past 1 year, we have been able to prepare very well for the next stage. Utilizing our data asset and trying to diversify our business, I think that we have achieved very a solid achievement of this effort.

Hopefully trying to explain a little bit further what we have achieved so far. Utilizing the implementation of M&A using the substantial assets, the Timee definitely has these valuable assets: we have over the 12 million registered workers and 400,000 registered clients, and trusted data of the over 2 million active workers, and active transaction volume over ¥120 billion, eight offices across the country, industry-specific dedicated for each industry, which is our sales team, logistic, and the social care, very well suited for each industry, and product team with nearly 200 other employees, which is giving us a very solid foundation of the business.

As shown on the left, we have been able to have the strategy backcasted from the vision. I think we are capable of implementing an M&A in a different areas, and trying to review which is then implement further, and then trying to achieve some inorganic growth.

Hopefully, we will be able to meet our expectation here. That will be my part, and I would like to pass on to Mr.

Yagi to cover the financial results summary.

Tomoaki Yagi

Hi everybody, this is Mr. Yagi speaking.

Full year the results shown here in this slide, I think that some details are already shown. The net sales, we have announced the revision forecast at the third quarter timing, we have been able to achieve the net sales within the range of the revision of the forecast, that's for the net sales.

For the other profit, we're landing around the lower range of the range. I think for the operating margin, although we have done the strategic investments in some of the forecast area, but the net sales landing in the lower end of the range, that's in our expectation.

By industry, what happened for the each industry? Net sales for the logistics industry performed very well.

On the other hand, second quarter, third quarter, and the fourth quarter, food industry has been definitely struggling. As we explained before, this is coming from the cost constraints that industry is suffering.

For the operating profit, OPM has been progressing steadily. Fourth quarter, as explained, we have increased the strategic investment, but overall investments were very disciplined, which continued from the first quarter.

OPM improved pretty well by a large margin. As we explained before, as a full year the summary, net sales, yes, continues to slow, but we also went throughout different many things over the past 1 year.

The competition intensified definitely, but we have been able to take the good defense mode, and as a result, we have been able to establish the absolute number one position in the market. That basically reduced the impact of the intensified competition.

We have been able to launch industry-specific initiative to reaccelerate the growth. We would touch about them later, but we have achieved a lot of different many things because of this effort.

We have been deep diving into each specific industry. As a last thing, the Timee Career Plus, that's also progressing very well majorly, utilizing the data accumulated of the spot work.

We have been very, very good at managing the defense, the phase. For the net sales and operating profit, both we have increased over the year on year, and OPM also improved.

About the cost, if you look at the breakdown and we're looking at the full year versus the quarter by quarter, a lot of the HR costs and also the other marketing and other costs are normally the major items, but the HR costs has been decreasing. Worker marketing also a little bit increasing, but overall, it's been maintained in a very disciplined area, general, it's in a good very good balance.

The profit rate has been a little bit decreasing, but this is coming from some of the strategic investment. Going to the net sales, as shown here, logistics and the retail has been steadily, and then the food continues to slow down a little bit.

Now we have the social care, elderly care, that's been growing, and that's why we added into this breakdown, and they're growing close to the double. Company-wide and also the industry-wide, the result we're explaining in each slide, company-wide here, very close, the transaction volume, very similar to the net sales, and the active accounts also steadily and very well.

Transaction volume per account maintained the positive year on year growth, and this is also being able to show that growth from the third quarter as well. Logistics industry, transaction volume be 23.9% year on year in the fourth quarter.

Maybe third and fourth quarter, maybe the logistics has been a little bit slow, and the reason maybe I would like to explain here in the next slide. The latest trends in the logistics industry, that's the overall trend, and they tend to have adjusting the outsourced labor cost markedly in response to peak and off-season, especially in the fourth quarter, which is August to October.

There is a noticeably move to suppress the labor cost after the mid-summer gifts, which is a peak season, and after that they seem to constrain the cost. It's not like they stop using it.

They would come back when it becomes busy. That's why we see a lot of restraint in the third and fourth quarter.

On the other hand, large companies, which is our focus, we are showing the very high growth, which is showing the high growth every quarter, which is benefit from the onboarding burden reduction project, which is definitely the results of these initiatives. On the right side, upside factors, the introduction of the field managers project leverage very well, increasing the number of job openings, and also that's also contributing to increase of the active accounts, and also that adding more supported job category as well.

This will be our the focus area. Food industry, the trend still remains the same, sometimes positive, but a little bit negative, goes seesaw.

Our countermeasures, we have already started implementing it, which we will explain later. Retail, they're maintaining the high growth.

Now the active accounts growing by 20%, and the active accounts showing positive due to our continued BPR, trying to increase the number of the job openings drastically. We have already started seeing this in many locations.

Social care industry also showing the very high growth. Active accounts increase is very noticeable.

The fill rate, we have been able to maintain the fill rate at the very high level. The mid-term, long-term plan, we would explain from Mr.

Ogawa.

Ryo Ogawa

When we look at the numbers, you can see that there are labor shortage, and there are 36 million individuals, and Timee registered numbers it is 12 million. Then monthly, people that actually open the app, there is 2.5 million.

Then for monthly active workers who work more than once, there is about 300,000 individuals. Therefore, within the context of Timee, so long as we can capture clients, there are many workers that are willing to work, and that is the situation that we have been able to secure.

With labor shortage, each of the companies have no means, and they don't know how to secure people. Within that context, Timee has workforce, and therefore, we are in a very strong position.

Within that context, we want to turn all work into spot work shifts, and that is something that is in demand. Work that anybody can do, this is an area that Timee is cultivating, and companies are thinking, this is an area that we want to leave to Timee, and that's why we do see our sales revenue build up.

The companies are thinking maybe this is an area that is difficult for Timee, they may eventually shift to spot work, then we would be able to materialize more access to Timee, and then with that, over time, as well as workload on the full-time employees should be reduced. Shifting to spot work, BPR is going to be of critical importance.

As Yagi mentioned, in the retail sector, there is a very serious labor shortage. This is where Timee can do.

Those that have worked with Timee three times, this is what we can do. We need to make sure that we actually break out the different work.

There is a new work bridge that we want to try to create through BPR. Then people would be able to actually work for the first time, and they would be able to become repeat workers, and that's the foundation that we want to establish.

This is an area that would be difficult for companies to do. We need to visit the ground, and then we need to support everybody.

This is something that we'd have a very on the ground sales people so that we support BPR of each of the companies. We want to have an attitude to really address each of the sectors.

We actually have locations, and we have more than 700 sales individuals, and this is an overwhelming strength. Even though there was a lot of new entrants and competitors, Timee is, once again, reiterating its strong position, and I do believe that that was evidenced through the year.

With that, we are trying to break down into simple jobs, it would be spot work plus additional work. To be more substantial, it would be field manager, supporters in terms of onboarding.

We want to try to reduce onboarding burden for spot workers and also improve productivity, and that is really resonating. Then as we have been mentioning, when it comes to YoY negative, how do we try to capture that?

In the food and beverages area, there is a long-term employment need. Therefore, there are many, I think, jobs that are being used by many companies, and for that, we have 12 million users at Timee.

There are many people that are looking for part-time work immediately, we can try to match that to offer a long-term hiring support function. Even though we actually have not addressed the handling of tasks that would be specific qualifications and skills required, that's something that we also want to address going forward.

As a result of that, this is a solution lineup: Spot-wise, there are many field managers and qualifications in the spot area that we do want to expand into, not limited to spot, but for the short to long-term area as well. We will have field works, Sukima Works, as well as long-term part-time hiring support.

We will address this market by doing so. For the regular employee area, through our work, which is called Timee Career Plus, we will address this as well.

All of HR is going to be addressed by Timee. Within HR, we want to have a diversification of our business, and the base will be all of the trust, as well as the trust scores, that has been established through Timee.

Apart from that, most recently, logistics, food, retail, there's a lot of movement, and this is what we have summarized together. For logistics, there is going to be a very strong position that we have continuing to enjoy.

Robot implementation is difficult. Therefore, to create new warehouses from zero, you can actually have robots as a prerequisite, but most of the warehouses are not being built.

It's 10, 20, 30 years since it has been built, a revamping is going to take quite a bit of time. Then, it's very expensive to begin with, therefore, the spot work demand is going to continue to be required.

For food, retail area, we are going to offer BPR solidly, and within that context, for recruitment, we want to really commit, and we can grow further in this area. When it comes to elderly care, as well as social care, we do have a nationwide sales network, and we will be marketing to the full so that we can expand quickly.

We would like to break this down into little parts to discuss more details, now starting with onboarding burden reduction projects. There are some examples that we can share for the field managers that are located.

The companies outsourcing HR, it is 45% penetration rate for Timee. Not just receiving a spot workers, but it would be more of logistics as a whole, and we have advanced HR location, as well as layout improvement, that we actually make as a proposal.

The companies are really feeling that we are offering consulting services, and we are being received very well. That's why Timee recruitment rate is now high.

We want to bring this 45% of Timee share of total outsourced labor cost to 50, 90. The penetration rate was only about 10, 13%, and it really did not expand.

However, even those companies, we want to locate field managers so that the total consulting solution offering is now available, and I think this is a significant jump for us. Therefore, we can see in the numbers how we have been succeeding.

Therefore, we want to make sure the success is going to be enlarged. Now moving on to the elderly care, as well as the social area, as a whole, within the accounts, we only have 2% share.

Therefore, the market is quite significant as a pie. Then when it comes to potential of qualified workers, we only have 7% registrants.

Therefore, we want to secure workers, and in addition to this, there is a lot of potential for growth in the space. Now moving on to social care, we want to concentrate marketing budgets and sales resources, and we really do want to budget for social care, and we want to increase the sales workforce, and we want to try to double at a minimum.

For product development, there's going to be improving the search experience, and we have a dedicated product development team. Therefore, we didn't address this for the full year.

However, now we're going to make sure that we revamp this as a focal area, and as management, we're going to commit to this area. That has already been decided.

Therefore, when it comes to the social care area, there's going to be a high growth that we should be able to achieve this coming fiscal year. Now moving on to M&A, Sukima Works, there's a lot of synergy that we have actually be enjoying through the acquisition, Sukima Works.

When it comes to logistics where operations utilizing spot work is a more of a holistic approach that they can take, and when it comes to field managers that are being located in each of the locations, they say, we'll leave everything up to Timee. We want to make sure that we could address this fully, and we can now do this.

When it comes to Sukima Works, they were unable to really market to certain accounts, we can actually ride along to approach certain accounts, and we actually are acquiring new customers. Therefore, there is a very high level of synergy that we're enjoying in order to grow this business for going forward.

When it comes to long-term part-time hiring, as we have mentioned about development of the feature supporting this, allow me to dive a little deeper into this. This would be specifically for the food and beverages and retail area.

When it comes to more of the job boards, companies used to have a budget for this each and every year, and they were trying to hire part-time workers. However, when it comes to job boards, they would interview after posting, and then they would hire, and then work.

Within 3 months, 30% of the people would be leaving anyways, and therefore, it was a very early leave that was an issue. Within that context, when it comes to Timee, people that work with us, they come to work, and then company and the workers have a mutual understanding, and workers want to work, and then the employees want them to work, and then it would be more of a mutual understanding, and then you would be able to actually match.

As for the workers, there are value that they can only enjoy at Timee. Therefore, when they look for work, they can actually have them paid while they look for work, and they can confirm the workplace culture before committing, and then the clients can understand exactly why workers are better, and then they would be able to enjoy a better wage.

When it comes to job boards that are being available, there are only one or two people that will be applying. When it comes to a very difficult-to-hire area, Timee can actually address this.

Therefore, we can prevent hiring mismatches as well. There could be actual performance that is uncoverable in interviews or resumes, and then reducing burden on the ground as well.

There is staffing needs on a daily basis, and we will be able to actually alleviate that from a longer-term part-time hiring, and therefore, it could actually be covered with a one-stop. We are actually interviewing some college students, and it seems like the way they find part-time work is very different.

They used to look at job boards, interview, then get hired, and they work. Then, they now work with Timee, and if they find something good, then they would work there for a longer time.

These are voices that we're hearing, and we want to try to commercialize this, and we want to make sure that we can launch this as a project. Then, this would be the image what the price looks like.

As a company, within their annual budget, there's a spot work budget as well as job board cost budget. They have two different categories of budget in the past.

Within that, we want them to use spot work, and then we want to offer a long-term part-time hiring feature. People that have been sent from Timee, and people want to hire for long, then we would be able to try to have a long-term part-time hiring feature.

Therefore, they don't need to spend money in the job boards they used to do before, we can offer a comprehensive offering. Currently, we are under a POC for the status of proof-of-concept.

We are conducting POC at 270 locations across 40 major companies. Then at one of the F&B company, in just 2 months, we are able to see 32 people that have been hired.

When they actually formulate an annual budget coming into March, there are many people that are part-time workers that will be leaving, and that in mind, we want to make sure that the budget can be allocated to us, and we want to make sure that we can price and commercialize this concept. Based on that, we want to reach out to the food and beverages, as well as retail companies' growth area in this sector, which is non-linear.

Now moving on to the Timee Career Plus, a full-time employee placement. We have 12 million users, and there is a lot of work data that we have, and this is what is referred to as Timee CV.

It doesn't have anything about education or a career. This is only about how long they have worked at Timee, what kind of badges they have been able to acquire, and that is Timee resume.

These are things that is uncoverable through a normal CV: exactly what their attitude is and exactly what they are as a character. This is something that we want to offer to the customers.

When it comes to maybe a candidate for logistics location manager, or hotel front person, or maybe at a construction site, maybe some of the managerial people, it's very difficult to find people in that area. For such companies, we actually offer this service.

It is maybe about as a fee structure, it's 30% of the annual salary per new hire. The workers actually cannot apply for a full-time job, and therefore, we act as a career advisor and we work alongside with them.

We say that, with your Timee resume, you will definitely be appreciated by many companies, and this is what the companies are looking for, and we try to motivate them. We can actually create a flow for a non-full-time to a full-time employee, and through Timee, these are the things that we are starting to see happening.

Therefore, as Timee, we are able to establish this unique business by trying to leverage off of our data asset. This concept is something that I would like to briefly touch on as well.

Traditionally, it would have been through maybe a CV screening, and then you would go for an interview, and then you will be employed. Using Timee resume, the HR of the companies do not need to go through a document screening or they don't need to go through interviews, and they can actually give a soft okay in the hire with just Timee resume.

The clients, it will be hundreds and thousands of employees that they need to employ, and the HR has not been able to fully utilize their resource where we are able to offer quality and then also send in customers. Then the employees do not need to have repeated interviews, and then therefore, this is actually really attaining higher hiring rates as well.

Details are available on this page, please do revisit them when time avails. With that in mind, Timee can grow going forward.

First for spot work in 2025, there's ¥34.2 billion in terms of our net sales for October of fiscal year 2025. Yano Research has introduced the market size of spot work, and it's going to be ¥118 billion by 2030, and we really do want to expand the market itself.

That's what BPR should be doing, and that's something that we will be addressing. It's not just limited to that area, but when it comes to dispatch, job boards, as well as full-time employee placement, we want to offer a holistic HR service, and we want to penetrate into the existing HR services as well so that we can offer something that is very unique to Timee and try to contribute to Japan's labor shortage.

Now moving on to Yagi to share with you our forecast.

Tomoaki Yagi

Let me just dive into some details for FY2026 October consolidated forecast. This time around, Sukima Works has now joined our group, and therefore, it will be on a consolidated basis when it comes to our guidance.

Overall, there's consolidated and there's spot work, which is what Timee has been doing in a non-consolidated way, and then other than spot work. That would be Sukima Works business, as well as Timee Career Plus that we were mentioning before, as well as other new businesses that we are currently preparing, and that would all be under others.

This is how the structure works. Most will be spot work, and that would be the predominant area of numbers and that will remain unchanged.

Overall for fiscal year 2026 October consolidated forecast, previously, as we've reviewed, it was 27.6% YoY growth. Then for October 2026, it is going to be a preparatory period.

Therefore, when it comes to net sales growth, as you can see, it is going to be 27.6%. However, it is going to be 20% that we would like to maintain.

When it comes to operating profit, it is going to be increased in operating profit that we are going to be attaining for profitability. There is going to be quite of investments that will be happening in October 2026.

It is going to be a preparatory period and it will be investments for growth. Therefore, it is not going to be a significant jump in our profitability.

However, having said that, we do want to maintain the current profitability plus maybe a little bit of an improvement. Therefore, for operating profit, we want to make sure that it is going to be on the rise, and that is the plan that we have here.

Now when it comes to our net income, it may look like maybe it's a bit lower. However, a year ago, I did explain that there is a deferred tax that is now going to be turning into a positive in the first quarter.

From October of 2026, it would be more of a normalized situation that you will be seeing, therefore a one-off. Profitability has now been normalized.

When it comes to our operating profit as well as ordinary profit, it is either flat or it's going to be a little bit of a plus, and that would be the trend as a whole. In terms of how to address the range, there is the top and also bottom of the range.

When it comes to logistics for spot work, the field manager initiative is now going to wear fair well, and we see more recruitments, and sales should be increasing. When it comes to the elderly care and social worker area, there will be qualified workers that we are hoping to increase, and that's an initiative that we are working for in the elderly care and social care, and that active rate is now going to be increasing, and sales should be increasing.

That's why that would be the leverage for the upper end. Then for the more Sukima Works, as Ogawa explained, there's going to be a synergy effect that we're already seeing, and therefore, we are seeing more deals coming in.

Then as for the bottom, in the fourth quarter, we did say under our actuals, logistics market, especially the medium to smaller companies, now there's a change in the industry. Therefore, it seems to be a difference between the cooler period as well as a very busy period.

If this, I think, less busy period continues, then we do want to have a lower end available as a range. When it comes to the numbers, it is as you can see for our piece.

Overall, as a concept, it is going to be strategic investment in the logistics area as well as in the elderly care, social care area. We want to make sure that we solidly invest.

On the other hand, we're not going to be a significant investment overall. It's going to be areas that are required and areas that are not, we want to make sure that we do have, I think, an alignment in terms of how we do this priority-wise.

We want to look at productivity as well. When it comes to trial area where we used to spend quite a bit of time, we want to make sure that we revisit this, and we want to make sure that we allocate investments into areas that will be high-growth potential areas, and that would be the overall thinking.

Therefore, spot work, we want to make sure that we generate solidly profitability, and then we want to make sure that profitability is going to be spent on growth investments. That would be for the spot work area.

That's pretty much redundant with what I have just explained. In the space, therefore, as you can see under this page, for profitability, it is going to be about 20%.

For October 2026, it's going to be the max it may be 25%. As I mentioned, the HR fee as well as worker marketing, we want to have strategic investments and that will be inclusive.

Outside of that, it should be even further boosted. I think that's something that we can see very solidly.

Then when it comes to our net sales, and this is going to be broken down by sector, I will not dive into details of each sector. One thing I do like to note, when it comes to the long-term hiring support, how is that priced into our forecast?

Basically, we have not priced that in. The reason is the pricing model and at what price unit I'll be going with, we haven't really launched this yet.

Therefore, we can't really price that in. That's why, once it starts to grow, then that would be an additional upside that we could account for.

Therefore, that would be more of an upside driver. When it comes to other than spot work, it is Timee Career Plus as well as Sukima Works.

In terms of net sales, it's going to be a significant plus, and Sukima Works is going to be additional. Then Timee Career Plus is also going to achieve a very significant growth as well.

On the other hand, it is still an investment phase. Therefore, when it comes to profitability, as well as operating profit, it would be a negative.

Timee Career Plus and also Sukima Works scenario, this is as it reads on the right-hand side. It's basically going to be increasing our sales force, and then at the same time, we want to make sure that we make investments in marketing as well.

Therefore, we want to make investments that is in line with the scale, and that will be the base case scenario. Now moving on to capital allocation.

As we said, Timee is going to make quite a bit of strategic investments. Then for the existing area, we want to really boost productivity so that profitability is going to be generated quite significantly.

Even with a small, I think, budget in mind, and it's more than ¥30 billion worth of cash flow that we will be able to generate across the next 5 years. Then when it comes to our credit line, we have about ¥2 billion, and then there is M&A that we could be potentially considering, then we would have financial leverage using debt in order to generate cash flow, and that's something that we have in mind.

Therefore, we do have quite a bit of a budget that could be allocated for growth investments. It's not just organic, but inorganic growth as well.

We want to make sure that we spend significantly into growth investments, and that's a message that we do want to emit. Then, there's quite a bit of capital that could be ramping up, and then at the end of the year, there's about more than 40% in terms of our capital, equity capital.

Therefore, we have no intention of just ramping up our capital, and we want to make sure that that will be spent on growth investments. However, if there are no investments that we need to make, then we want to make sure that that will be allocated to shareholder return.

That's another thing that we want to send out as a message. Now lastly, in terms of our target areas for M&A, this will be redundant with what we said in the outset.

As you look at the right-hand side, this will be more of a contract type that would be including more of outsourcing as well as dispatching as well as spot work that we're working on. Then by sector and by area, we want to make sure that M&A and alliances together we will be considering all of the different areas.

Therefore, Timee has quite a bit of asset, and there could be quite a bit of synergy that we could be enjoying. This is the area that we will be investing in so that not just revenue, but profitability can be boosted so that both it can be enjoying a very high growth in a sustainable manner, and that will be our commitment as a company for the future.

Lastly, just for reference, this will be the semi-annual breakdown of the fiscal year 2026 October consolidated forecast that would be broken down into the first half fiscal, and then full year. Then please do make yourselves available to this page when time avails.

Operator

Now we would like to open the floor for questions. Yes, please write your company's name and your name order in the Zoom.

Then if you have any questions, please raise your hand using the bottom Raise Hand button. Then once the meeting master assigns you, I will allow the voice is coming in, and please unmute yourself and ask the question.

Mr. Noguchi, please go ahead.

Yusuke Noguchi

BOB Securities, Noguchi speaking. Thank you very much.

I have two questions. The long-term hiring support, we have heard it's still a little bit under discussion.

The competitors, what will be our competitive advantage against them? As we have shown here in this slide, are we going to allow more cost affordability against the job board?

Or are this going to be the financial fee advantage or something more than that? Are you not trying to show just a discount, or something else?

I would like to ask for which direction we're going with. Existing the job boards, and for using them, how are we approaching to take over the shares from this existing job board competitors?

If you have any intention, please share with us. That's my first question.

Let me answer to the first question.

Ryo Ogawa

For the cost affordability, the business side they can reduce the cost by using our service. That's something that we would like to emphasize.

Cost reduction, how do we compare? We're looking at how much the business invested in the cost to hire one person.

One job opening, how many applicants came in, how many people applied, how many people came to the interview, and then how many people got hired, those kind of funnels. The conversion into the actual hiring is the most important.

How much did it cost for one hiring? We would like to make sure that that cost is way much efficient when you use Timee compared to the job boards.

Then the per cost of one hiring, and based on that, how long people keep working, and then how many of them actually ended up the quit. That's the data we have.

Somebody who hired from Timee versus somebody hired from the job board, I think that's something that the business can compare. Some of the results we have seen is if you hire from Timee, people would likely to less quit because we allow the scheme to make sure that the worker can actually work once.

They know what kind of work they're going to be doing on-site. That will reduce the probability of the mismatch.

We already have the 30% of the companies seeing that, and they are already giving a feedback that that's working better for the Timee. The rate will be way much better.

Because of the low quit rate, they can healthily keep running the business. How much can we achieve for the revenue?

Because we still have not decided on the pricing yet, and we're still exploring what's going to be the actual feedback. This is something that I would like to avoid disclosing a bit of the detail.

Yusuke Noguchi

Thank you very much. The second question, the shareholder return, we're not sure where we're going to do it or not, but we have seen your direction.

One thing I wanted to confirm is full year, looking at the cash flow full year, next full year earnings call, maybe we're not going to be seeing that announcement yet. You're not going to probably do that unless you have the substantial amount for the capital allocation.

The returns, we would like to understand better what's the background of this. Now you start talking about the shareholder return.

Are you going to, using this ¥200 million or you are going to prioritize the growth investment as the main pillar? In case the growth investment did not go accordingly, then that will be the second choice, the shareholder return is where to spend this cash allocation?

How should we understand this? Thank you very much.

Tomoaki Yagi

As we have written here, we're looking at the full year base. That's because we're also considering the budget as a full year base, so that's why we want to match those.

Full year financial results, and this does not mean that we're going to precisely match it together. For the shareholder return, we're doing it comprehensively: cash flow and also the future focus of the cash flow, M&A, and an irregular growth, and also some of the investments.

That does not mean we're going to deny all of that. The volume of this capital allocation, we would not be doing that when we don't really have that much amount to do so.

Do we have the impact or not? Is it a temporarily or how is the impact in a mid to long-term view?

Mid to long-term view, we would like to grow stock price. That's our presumption.

Would it be for that case, would it be better for the growth investment or should we go with the shareholder returns? That's something that we are always considering to decide our capital allocation.

The background, the shareholder return, we have actually mentioned that in the last earnings call as well. The growth investment is not be spent, and then we have more in the cash accumulated, then that will be opening up some area.

We would like to avoid this gap as much as possible. Some of the growth investment will be going there.

If there is anything that we could not spend as much as we thought, then in order to fill the gap, we are considering the shareholder return as another way to fill the gap. That's our priority and also how we calculate how much the budget or volume we're spending.

Thank you very much.

Operator

Next moving on to Okumura-san.

Yusuke Okumura

This is Okumura from Okasan Securities. I hope you can hear me.

Operator

Yes, we can.

Yusuke Okumura

One thing I would like to learn: The first is the take rate for the fourth quarter, as well as the guidance. The prerequisite for your sales revenue, I think that's something that I would like to clarify.

The take rate in the fourth quarter for logistics, as well as F&B, as well as retail, it seems like YoY and QoQ, it seems to be on the decline, I want to understand the reason. When it comes to the guidance for this fiscal year, I do believe that you have disclosed the sales revenue, however, for take rate, exactly what is the prerequisite?

If possible, we would like to understand by sector exactly what the prerequisite for your sales revenue is. Can you maybe discuss exactly how quantitatively that looks, because I know that you've touched upon the qualitative portion?

Tomoaki Yagi

Allow me, Yagi, to speak. When it comes to the fourth quarter take rate, it has declined in proportion in the industry.

It's not an overall decline, but it would be a certain accounts where we have introduced a campaign, and that's the reason. It's not just take rate decline, but it's more of trying to build the relationship with the customers, and we're looking into the future when we introduced this campaign.

With that, there's quite a bit of entry marketing, and then we are able to have quite a bit of active rate that is increasing. Once that is accepted, I do believe that there will be quite a bit of, I think, job offers that will come without any campaigns.

That's something that we were doing with a couple of accounts in different sectors. Then when it comes to the guidance, is it the guidance for the full year fiscal year 2026 or are you referring to the fourth quarter?

Yusuke Okumura

It would be the take rate prerequisite for the full year.

Tomoaki Yagi

There's no significant area that will be showing a decline. As we said, there's a proportion of campaign that we introduced.

Because of the campaign, the take rate did decline. However, when we look at the competitive environment, it's not as if it's becoming more intense.

That is starting to settle. As a company, as Timee, there are things that we will do intentionally, strategically.

It would not be because of downwards pressure that it will gradually decline. That is not something that we are basing off of, and we're not really seeing signs of such.

Yusuke Okumura

Thank you. Then related to this, when it comes to the F&B, retail, long-term employment support that you are going to be addressing, is it going to be an addition in the function?

I do believe so. Could it be that maybe take rate could decline temporarily, or should we not be worried?

When it comes to cross-sell, when you look at some examples, the job boards area, I think you do have great achievements, but what kind of approach do you have and what kind of a monetizing model? Are you going to be showcasing in order to see some success in that area?

I know that nothing is decided, but I would like to get some hints.

Ryo Ogawa

Allow me to respond. This is Ogawa.

It is right that take rate is not going to continue to decline. When it comes to spot fee for Timee, it is going to be added on, it's going to be an upsell.

That's one answer. Then how did we acquire?

The trial is, it is per outlet. It's going to be on a monthly basis.

It will be a couple of tens of thousands of yen that we receive. Then for that company, we actually offer this function to have them access to this function.

This is how we are offering this POC. Thank you.

That's very well taken.

Yusuke Okumura

Can I ask two questions? If you have more, please feel free to ask.

There's one more question that I have: When it comes to Timee Career Plus, I know that maybe numbers-wise, your track record is still small. However, I think you are basing off the fact that you want to grow this significantly.

For this area, is it like a general, I think, introduction business where career advisors, recruitment, sales will really change its sales? If you don't need to go through interviews, maybe the advisor's productivity is different, and maybe you don't need advisors so much.

May I better understand the image of how this works? Thank you.

Ryo Ogawa

Exactly to your point, when it comes to career advisors, it does really align, to a certain extent, with the number of advisors we have, but we would like to leverage AI as well so that the numbers of people that one advisor can address will be more voluminous. If we have double or triple or four times fold of increase with the career advisors' productivity boost.

Another thing to note is that there's a model without any CAs. That is a model that we're trying to establish.

There are times when we don't use career advisors, and with this resume from Timee for this job opening at a certain company, would you be willing to hire this person? That is the type of a system that we are trying to develop.

Once that is developed, then we would not need to rely on CA headcount for people to be recruited and hired. However, not all contact points can be addressed by system.

We're trying to maybe verify this, but we would probably need maybe a 10, 15 minutes support via telephone. Therefore, customer support position most likely will be required.

Maybe it's not a career advisor sales team, but then maybe it will be the CAs, as well as the telephone, I think, advisor that will be working in combination.

Operator

Thank you. Does anybody else have any questions?

Since that we have now reached the time of our schedule, we would like to conclude the Q&A session. That also concludes the full year financial results briefing.

Actually we do have one more question. David, please go ahead.

David Gibson

Thanks. It's David Gibson from MST.

Two questions. You said on the spot work outlook, the lower end of guidance is based on a slowing trend in the medium and small-sized companies in logistics.

Is that what you're actually seeing in the trends in November and December? Thank you.

Tomoaki Yagi

Please allow Yagi to speak. Fourth quarter, the logistics has been a little bit the downward trend.

August, mid-August to September, October, that's the trend we saw in that period. The peak, which is November and the December, we have not seen the deterioration.

The season, we have seen the demand coming back. That's also the latest situation as well.

This is not really the signs that it's been shrinking.

David Gibson

Thank you. The second question, you mentioned earlier on in your slides, you made a large strategic investment in the fourth quarter to acquire qualified workers in the social care industry.

Could you elaborate, please? Thank you.

Ryo Ogawa

Qualified workers, we do have a lot of room in the market to grow. As shown in the graph here, the number of the locations, there are many of them, well, we still have not been able to address yet.

The social care industry, they don't really have the large companies, the small business mainly. Trying to establish a lot in the client marketing, applying our sales force, trying to do the solid sales activities is how we're trying to grow our business solidly.

We are confident that this is the right path. We're trying to establish the organization to support this business.

We have assigned one executive officer who's designated particularly for this social care. This is how we show our commitment to this business.

Operator

Thanks very much. I think our time has reached the end.

This concludes the full year financial forecast briefing for the fiscal year ending October 2025. Thank you very much for your attention and attendance.

Thank you very much.