Beyond Finance, Beyond Borders: ORIX Takes Its Story to The World

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For more than 60 years, ORIX has been one of Japan's best-kept secrets: a widely diversified and quietly formidable corporate group that has expanded across industries and continents while remaining, to much of the international investment community, something of an enigma.

But now it is changing that. Gathering its senior leadership in London in July for the first ever ORIX Investor Day, the company signaled that it is ready to be properly understood - and invested in - by a much wider world. The choice of venue was no accident. It was a statement.

"Around 20% of our existing shareholders are based in Europe," says Hidetake Takahashi, President and Group CEO. "For Japanese equities, London is a core center outside of Japan. That is why we hosted the investor day here." But the audience ORIX had in mind extended well beyond familiar faces. To attract a new generation of international investors, ORIX shared not only where it has come from, but where it is going – and in greater detail and with more transparency than ever before.

ORIX Group CEO Hidetake Takahashi explains ORIX’s strategy to investors in London, July, 2026

"We are not just explaining our financial results from last fiscal year," notes Mr. Takahashi. "We are explaining our strategy, our long-term vision, and how we are going to execute that and achieve it. I hope we can convince new investors to come into ORIX."

That strategy, as Mr. Takahashi explained in his LinkedIn post about the event, centers on shifting ORIX from a balance sheet player to an asset manager that invests third-party funds alongside its own capital. This will allow clients to participate in its unrivalled deal flow, especially in Japan, while capturing higher fees and returns for itself.

A simpler structure

ORIX’s entire senior executive leadership team gathered for the Investor Day. From left: Shuji Irie, COO, Infrastructure Unit; Satoru Matsuzaki, COO, Japan & APAC Business Unit, Hidetake Takahashi, Group CEO; Terry Suzuki, COO, USA & Europe Business Unit; Masataka Yamada, Group CFO and CSO.

The gathering in London included not only the CEO, but also its newly appointed CFO, and the three Chief Operating Officers who oversee the three vertical business units it created recently to simplify a structure that previously spanned 10 different divisions and to drive faster growth through more accountable decision-making. The Japan & APAC Business Unit primarily comprises of the company’s core financial services businesses focused on client needs in its home market and the surrounding APAC region, the Infrastructure Business Unit creates asset value by developing, managing and operating real assets, and the USA & Europe Business Unit comprises the core of its asset management businesses.

Satoru Matsuzaki, head of the Japan & APAC Business Unit, argued that ORIX can unlock significant synergies through strategic integration of the platforms it has built in over a dozen Asian countries, while also exporting its successful ‘business solutions’ approach from Japan to the APAC region. "My strategic mission as Japan & APAC unit COO is to break silos and develop talent pools in order to turn our business in this region into a growth platform," he concluded in his Investor Day presentation.

Leveraging ORIX’s existing platform was also a theme stressed by Shuji Irie, COO of the Infrastructure Business Unit, who pointed to the Group’s "overwhelming presence" in infrastructure assets ranging from hotels and offices to logistics centers, aircraft, ships and renewable energy facilities. By originating and operating such assets, while financing them through third-party funds as well as the Group’s own balance sheet, ORIX "aims to become the No 1. Alternative Asset Player" in a market attracting ever more investor attention.

The USA & Europe Business Unit, meanwhile, is already centered on external investors, since it houses ORIX’s private and public asset managers, centered in the US and Europe, respectively. Terry Suzuki, its COO, is therefore focusing on unlocking synergies between the American and European arms: "We see scope for creating value together in distribution, joint product development, knowledge sharing and getting our businesses to support each other in their different markets," he stated.

New words for a new model

ORIX Group’s new campaign, Your Way Beyond Finance, explains how ORIX goes beyond only providing capital.

The Investor Day also marked the public launch of a new corporate campaign: Your Way Beyond Finance. The phrase is more than a tagline. It is a compressed statement of intent about what kind of company ORIX is becoming.

"What we want to emphasize is that we are not only a capital provider," says Mr. Takahashi. "We are an operator and a value creator - and that is what we really want to present through this new phrase."

Masataka Yamada, CFO and Chief Strategy Officer, unpacks the slogan further. "Your Way Beyond Finance has a few messages in it. First, we are not just financial; we do finance, but we also run operations. And 'Your Way' means we are always thinking about things from the client's perspective." The ambition, in short, is to be judged not merely by the size of the Group’s balance sheet, but as a partner in value creation.

At the heart of ORIX’s new corporate strategy, launched formally a year ago, are two headline targets: net income of 1 trillion yen and a return on equity of 15%, both to be achieved by 2035. The FY2026 results, with net income of 447 billion yen and an ROE of 10.4%, demonstrate considerable progress – reflected in a share price that is up nearly 50% year on year.

"The financial target for 2035 is ambitious, but achievable," says Mr. Takahashi. "As long as we can execute our strategy properly, I believe we can get there."

Mr. Yamada is equally direct about what achieving those numbers will require. "In order to achieve that, we really need to move quite boldly. We have to come up with a very aggressive strategy. And we have to be patient: executing the transactions will take time."

From balance sheet to asset manager

Masataka Yamada, Group CFO & CSO explains the shift ORIX is undertaking.

The engine of the transformation is a fundamental shift in business model: from accumulating assets on ORIX's own balance sheet to raising and deploying third-party funds. The goal is to become a global asset manager, operator and investor - capturing fees and carried interest alongside returns from its own capital. A giant leap in this direction was achieved in November, 2025 when ORIX and QIA partnered to launch a USD 2.5 billion Japan-targeted private equity platform.

The logic is compelling. ORIX has spent six decades turning itself from Japan’s first leasing firm into something no international rival can replicate - a network of over 400,000 clients in Japan, focused on SMEs, that gives it unmatched origination capability across alternative assets: private equity, real estate, aircraft, ships, renewable energy. Global capital wants exposure to Japan. ORIX has the deal flow. The only question is how quickly it can build the platform to bring demand and supply together at scale.

"ORIX has all of that origination in place," affirms Mr. Yamada. "That is why global capital managers come to us wanting to partner. Our key potential growth area is Japan's private market - but it barely exists today. We have to create the market, and that is going to require time and effort."

Mobilizing internal champions for Group-wide change

James Meyler, CEO of ORIX Aviation, and Karin Van Baardwijk, CEO of ROBECO in conversation with the CEO and CFO in London. They are both also ORIX Group executives and help bring different perspectives to the Group.

Looking at the portfolio built over the past 60 years, ORIX already has an enormous range of relevant capabilities and knowledge. The key will be to realize the full potential of that by fostering closer collaboration across its network, while simultaneously optimizing the portfolio.

Two ORIX businesses, in particular, ORIX Aviation and Robeco, both located in Europe, are already operating at the frontier of the asset-light model, and both are being seen internally as templates for the wider Group.

James Meyler, Group Executive and Chief Executive of ORIX Aviation, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, leads one of the world's top 10 aircraft leasing companies, with 35 years of track record and a Standard & Poor's asset manager servicer ranking that is rare in the industry. "We really don't just finance aircraft," he says. "We run the business - and have done for 35 years. There are very few finance houses with that level of operational expertise."

For Mr. Meyler, the new strategy is not a departure, it is an acceleration. "We've always had a large portion of our business in AUM and third-party funds, but the new focus has given a fresh impetus to drive that forward. It's landed very well within the company, because people can see it's not just about ROE growth - it's about the opportunities it creates to do new deals. Everyone really believes it."

Karin van Baardwijk, Group Executive and CEO of Dutch-based Robeco (owned 100% by ORIX), already leads a pure play asset manager – and one that has been in business for almost a century. For Robeco, the ORIX transformation represents an opportunity to take on a broader role. "I see it as a huge opportunity to spread our wings globally," she says. "But also as a responsibility - to help all of the operating companies within ORIX move towards this transition, to share knowledge, to work together on distribution and manufacturing."

The collaboration is already taking shape. Robeco is developing private credit which is a natural bridge between its public markets expertise and ORIX's alternative asset ecosystem. "What we also see is that more and more collaboration is possible between the private market side and the public market side," says Ms. van Baardwijk. "This strategy positions all of us very well to join forces in getting things done - because execution is the key thing."

Originate, operate, value-create

Hidetake Takahashi, Group CEO, took ORIX’s story to London so he could explain in person why the company offers a unique proposition to investors, clients and partners.

ORIX is acutely aware that its complex structure has, historically, been a barrier to international investor engagement. "Most new investors who have hesitated to invest in ORIX have done so because ORIX is so complex," admits Mr. Takahashi. "They cannot understand why ORIX has such a diversified portfolio."

His answer is not to simplify the portfolio, but to explain it better - and to show the value of being a diversified business group. The Group’s new structure, with three verticals each led by a COO, creates cleaner lines of accountability and communication. But diversification is not seen as a liability per se. Whether the asset is an aircraft, a ship, a hotel or a solar farm, the capital cycle is the same: originate, operate, and value-create through asset management and recycling. The synergies across the portfolio are real, and ORIX's three core philosophies - independence, agility and diversification - remain constant.

"We are on the same page," says Mr. Takahashi. "We see the same direction. We have a strong leadership team, and as long as we maintain that momentum, I believe we can get there."

The marathon ahead

But this Investor Day in London is only the beginning. Going forward, ORIX will start increasing the volume of its communications efforts globally, holding events in major centers around the world, bringing the story to new audiences – both equity investors and potential limited partners in future third-party funds it plans to launch.

The transformation of a 62-year-old Japanese corporation into a globally recognized asset management and operations platform will not happen overnight; but the direction is set and the early results are encouraging.

ORIX is a business built on independence, agility, and the courage to diversify when others would not. It is those same qualities that make its leadership confident that the 2035 vision is realistic and achievable. For a company that has always operated well beyond the boundaries of conventional finance, the new strategy, embodied by a new campaign, feels like an affirmation of its heritage.