Message from the President & CEO

Thank you for visiting the Hakuhodo DY holdings website. I would like to say a few words upon the completion of the first half of fiscal 2018.

During the first half, the Japanese economy continued on a gradual recovery trend due in part to the continued strong performance of corporations and solid consumer spending, despite various factors that placed downward pressure on the economy, such as intensifying trade conflict between the United States and China, the rising price of crude oil, and the occurrence of natural disasters. Meanwhile, the domestic advertising market fell to a level below that of the same period of the previous fiscal year, performing sluggishly compared with the solid performance of the overall Japanese economy.

Amid this environment, the Hakuhodo DY Group has continued to pursue proactive business development with the aim of accomplishing the goals of its Medium-Term Business Plan (the “Plan”), which runs through the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019.

As a result of such efforts, we realized year-on-year increases in domestic billings across a wide range of client industries, including Restaurant / Services, Finance / Insurance, and Beverages / Cigarettes / Luxury foods. Overseas, in addition to organic growth, we saw steady contributions from M&A carried out to promote the strategies of the Plan. This in turn allowed us to achieve significant revenue increases in Europe, North America, the Greater China region, and the ASEAN region.

Under the Plan, the Group adopts “Strengthening of sei-katsu-sha data-driven marketing response capabilities,” “Strengthening of organizational structure in Asia,” and “Acquisition of equity in innovative and unique specialized marketing service companies” as three important growth drivers. During fiscal 2018, we have been working to develop Sei-katsu-sha DATA WORKS™, a solutions package that allows us to fully leverage our various marketing solutions. We also have been taking steps to strengthen our structure for providing integrated marketing solutions in Asia. Furthermore, we are making efforts to expand kyu, a collective comprising unique and innovative member companies active in a wide range of fields. In these ways, we aim realize the targets of the Plan.

With the aspiration to realize sustainable growth and continuous improvement in corporate value, the Group has been aiming to contribute to the creation of an affluent future for sei-katsu-sha, growth in the economy, and the development of society. In August 2018, we published Integrated Report 2018, which introduces in detail our environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-related initiatives. Going forward, we will fulfill our social responsibilities as a corporation through initiatives unique to the Hakuhodo DY Group.

Returns to shareholders are determined by comprehensively taking into account factors including the Group’s business performance, and with a basic policy of maintaining a stable dividend. For fiscal 2018, we intend to raise the full-year dividend by ¥2.0, to ¥28.0 per share. In accordance with this intention, we have issued an interim dividend of ¥14.0.

I would like to thank all of our stakeholders for their support, and ask for your continued understanding and encouragement going forward.