Key insights
- The post discusses Komatsu, a Japanese manufacturer of mining, construction, and forestry equipment, highlighting its acquisitions, particularly Joy Global. It mentions Komatsu's presence in the forestry sector, unlike some competitors. The company distributes about 40% of earnings and has a high equity ratio. While not a strong signal, increased capital expenditure in the mining sector could lead to increased revenues for Komatsu, and by extension, Caterpillar.
![Komatsu (japanese mining, construction & forestry equipment manufacturer) [part 5]](/_next/image?url=%2Fimages%2Freddit.png&w=3840&q=75)
This is the fifth post of a serie of at least 8 posts on mining & construction equipment. The first posts were about Epiroc, Caterpillar, Sandvik and Liebherr. If you are only interested in something to buy TODAY, then no need to read this post.
Komatsu is a japanese company making equipment for the mining, construction and forestry industries. It also makes some industrial equipement, but that is only a small part of their activities. It was founded in 1917.
Mining
One of their big acquisition is mining is Joy Global in 2017. Part of this acquisition were Montabert (Hydraulic breakers), P&H (manufacturer of enormous machines for surface mining) and Joy (Underground Mining).
Forestry
They make forestry equipment, which for example Epiroc and Sandvik don't do at all.
They bought Partek Forest (SWE) in 2004, Logmax (SWE) in 2012, Quadco (CAN) & Southstar (SWE) in 2018, Timberpro (US) in 2019 and Bracke Forest (SWE) in 2022.
I like that some of their acquisitions make tools and accessories instead of full machines
Asset allocation
The company is distributing about 40% of their earnings. They don't really make share buybacks. The equity ratio is usually above 50%.
They make a lot of acquisitions, even though they are not the most active serial acquirer.
Shareholders, Management & Board
Management
The CEO is Takuya Imayoshi since april 2025. He joined the group in 1987.
The CFO joined the group in 1986. Mitsuko Yokomoto, responsible for HR and other topics has been named in june 2023 but joined the group in 1985. Taisuke Kusaba, the CTO, joined the group in 1989.
The president of the mining business division is Peter Salditt. He worked for Atlas Copco (now Epiroc since the 2018 spin-off) from 1999 to 2014 (president of the Drilling solutions division in 2011-2014). He then joined JoyGlobal as president of the Underground segment. Joyglobal was bought by Komatsu in 2017.
In short, the global image is frequent changes in term of positions, but lots of managers that are in the group since a long time.
Board
The chairman is Hiroyuki Ogawa since april 2025. Previously he was the CEO of the group since april 2019 and worked for the group since 1985.
If we look at the non-executive directors, the oldest joined the board in 2020. I would prefere more continuity on the board.
Shareholders
The biggest shareholders are mostly banks and insurance companies.
Some numbers
The profitability is strictly lower than Epiroc's every year and in average it is also lower than Sandvik's : 9.41% (3.19), 6.29% (3.20), 4.85% (3.21), 8.03% (3.22), 9.21% (3.23), 10.18% (3.24), 10.71% (3.25).
In average, they generate sales close to 74% of their balance sheet total in the beggining of the year. Conclusion : they probably pay slightly too much for their acquisitions and other investments.
Conclusion
The company has a low P/E of 14.55. I personally don't invest in asia so I would not buy it. It is not the best, but it is so much cheaper than its competitors so it might make sense as an investment.