Marubeni reported results for the three months ended 30 June 2026 on 3 August.
What was reported
| Quarter | Year ago | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 2,609.2 | 2,163.7 | +20.6% |
| Gross trading profit | 381.0 | 299.8 | +27.1% |
| Operating profit | 132.1 | 85.4 | +54.7% |
| Profit before tax | 228.8 | 181.5 | +26.1% |
| Net profit | 186.4 | 154.4 | +20.7% |
| Adjusted profit | 177.0 | 128.0 | record |
In billions of yen
The split that explains everything
Marubeni publishes a breakdown not every trading house gives: resources against non-resources.
- Resources: ¥51.0 billion, against ¥28.0 billion a year ago - near doubling
- Non-resources: ¥118.0 billion, against ¥96.0 billion - up 23%
So of the ¥49.0 billion increase in adjusted profit, resources supplied ¥23.0 billion - almost half. The rest came from steadier businesses.
And within share of profit of associates, up 15.2% to ¥88.8 billion, metals and resources alone added ¥9.7 billion - with the company naming the sources explicitly: Chilean copper and Australian coking coal.
Why this matters beyond Marubeni
This is exactly the same pair Mitsubishi named in its own report the same day - Australian coking coal and copper.
Two different companies, two separate reports, the same two profit sources named explicitly. That is what turns these reports into a measurement of the market rather than just one company's performance.
Cash flow: the record worth noting
Core operating cash flow reached ¥249.9 billion, up ¥96.0 billion - a record.
And one figure shows how strong that is: it is 38% of the full-year forecast of ¥660.0 billion - in a single quarter.
That stands in interesting contrast to Mitsui, which reported the following day with negative free cash flow - a difference arising from the different working-capital composition of the two companies.
The full map of Japan's earnings week: The Week Japan Reported
My Angle
A personal opinion of Ilan Abramov - not advice, not a recommendation
What distinguishes Marubeni in this group is the balance.
It is easy to look at a commodity boom and assume all the trading houses are simply leverage on metal prices. Marubeni's split shows that is not accurate: its non-resources arm - agriculture, power, aerospace, food - grew 23% on its own and supplied more than two thirds of adjusted profit.
And what I particularly note is the cash flow. 38% of the full-year forecast in a single quarter is not a number produced easily, and it creates flexibility - for acquisitions, dividends or buybacks.
The cautious note: a quarter leaning hard on commodity prices is also a quarter exposed to their reversal. What rose fast can fall fast.
