Bilingual executive search agency, Tokyo and Canada offices

What is for sale

This is an executive search firm specialising in bilingual professionals, with offices in Tokyo and Canada, focused on mid-level to department-head roles in pharmaceuticals, IT and energy sectors. It uses a headhunting model built on an in-house candidate database of about 270,000 people, LinkedIn outreach and referrals, and has a track record of placing high-salary candidates (annual salaries of 8 million to 30 million yen). The financial year shown is for the period ending December 2024, and the owner states the reason for sale is to concentrate on another business.

Because this is a company (share) sale, the buyer takes over the existing legal entity along with its licence, bank account, contracts and staff rather than starting fresh.

What is included

• Real estate (property)
• Business goodwill and franchise rights
• Know-how
• Paid employment placement business licence
• Job seeker database
• All staff currently employed as full-time employees

Strengths (as the seller states them)

• About 270,000 candidates in its proprietary database
• Dual Tokyo and Canada bases with strong track record serving global companies
• Bilingual (Japanese and English) service capability
• Numerous high-value placements with salaries of 8 million to 30 million yen

Wrinkles a careful buyer would ask about

• The manager in charge of the Canada office is expected to stay on after the sale, so buyers should confirm the terms and scope of this continued involvement
• All staff are full-time employees, so buyers should confirm the assumptions around retaining the workforce
• Detailed financials such as director remuneration, depreciation, cash balance, total assets, interest-bearing debt and net assets are not shown publicly and require member registration to view
• Seller is also considering other M&A brokers in parallel
• Broker success fee applies with a minimum of 5,000,000 yen plus tax, under a Lehman-style formula, with 20% of the estimated success fee payable as an interim payment once exclusive negotiation begins

Paying for it

If you stay overseas. No Japanese bank will lend to a new company whose director lives abroad. The realistic stack is your own cash plus asking the owner to take part of the price over 2 to 3 years. That one question is in every Deal Pack.

If you move to Japan. On a visa that lets you run a business, Japan Finance Corporation lends up to ¥72M at about 1 to 2 percent for exactly this. Once you have a Japanese company, the government pays two-thirds of due diligence and registered-broker costs, up to about ¥8M (round 16 closes 6 Nov 2026). The company's existing bank relationship comes with it.

What this listing says. The broker charges a success fee on a Lehman-style sliding scale with a minimum of 5,000,000 yen plus tax, and 20% of the estimated fee is due as an interim payment once exclusive negotiations start; no debts, loans or personal guarantees are mentioned in the text.

Full rundown, with the catches: japandealflow.com/money