QUICK (4318)Initiating coverage: Post-investment growth

Key financials

Year end	3/2025	3/2026	1Q 3/2027	3/2027E
Sales (¥bn)	32.5	33.9	10.4	34.8
OP (¥bn)	4.5	4.6	3.0	4.1
NP (¥bn)	3.6	4.2	2.1	2.8
EPS (¥)	63.9	74.1	36.8	50.3
DPS (¥)	32.0	37.7	n/a	38.0
Sales growth YoY (%)	10.2	4.4	5.2	2.6
OP growth YoY (%)	-8.7	1.1	4.6	-10.3
NP growth YoY (%)	2.2	16.1	9.4	-32.5
EPS growth YoY (%)	2.2	16.1	9.8	-32.2
PER (x)	10.0	11.3	9.3	17.4
EV/EBITDA (x)	4.1	6.5	5.0	6.8
PBR (x)	2.0	2.4	2.0	2.4
ROE (%)	20.9	22.4	22.2	n/a
ROIC (%)	17.0	17.2	17.0	n/a
FCF yield (%)	11.3	5.7	n/a	n/a
Dividend yield (%)	5.0	4.5	n/a	4.3

Source: Company & Bloomberg. Note: 3-for-1 stock split in December 2025.

Results vs forecast history

Operating profit results have met or exceeded the company’s original forecast in each of the last 5 fiscal years.

FY	OP result (¥m)
3/22	3,346
3/23	4,487
3/24	4,965
3/25	4,533
3/26	4,584

Company overview

QUICK CO., LTD. provides a broad range of human resources services across recruitment, job advertising, temporary staffing, local information services, HR platforms & overseas operations. Personnel Placement Services is its largest business, serving construction, manufacturing, IT, pharmaceuticals, mechanics & nursing, among others.

The company was founded in 1980 as QUICK Planning, operating as Recruit Co., Ltd.’s first Kansai agency in job advertising. It was renamed QUICK in 1990, launched its Personnel Placement business in 1997 & established QUICK USA in 1999, beginning its overseas expansion.

In 2003, it acquired what is now Colorful Company, entering the information publishing business in the Hokuriku region. During the 2010s, QUICK established subsidiaries in Vietnam & Mexico, then entered the UK market via the acquisition of Centre People. Since 2020, it has added offices in Thailand, the Netherlands & Germany.

QUICK’s shares listed on JASDAQ in 2004, moved to TSE’s First Section in 2014, & transitioned to the Prime Market in 2022.

The company operates a dual head office structure in Osaka & Tokyo. Its domestic group companies comprise 4 entities: HR Vision, Colorful Company, QUICK Care Jobs & Career System. Jump was dissolved in June 2026 & integrated into the recruiting business, whilst all shares in WORK PROJECT were sold in July 2026.

Overseas, the group operates 8 locations across 7 countries: QUICK USA, Centre People (UK), Centre People (Netherlands), Centre People (Germany), QUICK VIETNAM, QHR Holdings (Thailand), QHR Recruitment (Thailand) & QUICK GLOBAL MEXICO.

QUICK operates 5 business segments. Human Resources Services is the largest, accounting for 69.2% of sales & 79.4% of OP. The Recruiting segment, its founding business, follows with 10.9% of sales & 25.0% of OP, with a high 30.9% OPM. The remaining 3 segments – Local Information Service, HR Platform & Overseas – each contribute <10% of sales. Local Information Service & HR Platform each contribute ~10% of OP, whilst Overseas contributes 3.7%.

FY 3/26 segment composition

Segment (¥bn)	Sales	Sales share	OP	OP share	OPM
Human Resources Services	23.5	69.2%	3.6	79.4%	15.5%
Recruiting	3.7	10.9%	1.1	25.0%	30.9%
Local Information Service	3.1	9.0%	0.5	10.7%	16.1%
HR Platform	1.1	3.3%	0.5	10.4%	42.2%
Overseas	2.6	7.5%	0.2	3.7%	6.6%
Adjustment			-1.3
Total	33.9		4.6		13.5%

Source: Compiled by Storm Research from company data.

By region, domestic sales represent 92.5% of sales, with overseas sales accounting for the remaining 7.5%. Within overseas operations, North & Central America contribute 59%, Europe 35% & Asia 6% of sales.

Within Personnel Placement Services, hiring & onboarding dates concentrate in April, particularly for nurses, skewing OP towards 1Q. 1Q 3/26 OP reached ¥2.84bn, representing 62% of FY 3/26 OP of ¥4.58bn. The Human Resources Services segment showed an even sharper concentration, with 1Q contributing 72.6% of FY segment OP.

Business model

Human Resources Services

Personnel Placement Services generates the majority of Human Resources Services sales. QUICK sources job seekers through its own website, internet advertising & external career-change platforms. Consultants interview both parties – gathering job seekers’ career plans & preferred conditions, & client companies’ hiring criteria & candidate requirements – to identify optimal matches. Once the job seeker joins, QUICK earns a success-based placement fee from the hiring company.

QUICK cites 2 factors that differentiate it from competitors: an end-to-end system, & a focus on specific industries & professional occupations.

End-to-end system. Most competitors assign separate consultants to job seekers & client companies. QUICK’s end-to-end system instead has a single consultant handle both sides throughout the process. Consultants take longer to train under this approach, but they can reconcile the needs of job seekers & clients directly. Matching outcomes also do not depend solely on individual consultants’ skills: job seeker information is instantly visible to other consultants within the system, & placements involving collaboration across multiple consultants account for 80% of the total. Together, these features drive higher service quality & conversion rates.

Whilst consultants elsewhere often make matches that prioritise their own sales, QUICK’s management philosophy of “making everyone involved happy” embeds a culture that prioritises the best match for both job seeker & client company, regardless of which consultant originated the placement. In consultant recruitment, QUICK explains the background to its end-to-end system & hires people who share that thinking, & it has set up a dedicated training team of experienced consultants.

Specialisation in specific industries & professional occupations. Each vertical runs its own dedicated website with a tailored marketing strategy, giving QUICK strong brand recognition & job seeker acquisition capabilities within its niche markets. Primary placement categories currently span:

• Pharmaceuticals: MRs, research, clinical development, MA/MSL, academic affairs & regulatory affairs.
• Construction, civil engineering & facilities: professional engineers, architects, building, civil engineering & electrical construction managers.
• Electrical, mechanical & chemical (including automotive & semiconductor): R&D, production & service engineering, design, sales, quality control, testing & analysis, procurement, SCM & automotive maintenance.
• IT: systems, infrastructure & machine learning engineers, data scientists & IT consultants.
• Cosmetics & consumer goods: sales, planning, research, PR, quality control & marketing.
• Corporate administration: accounting & finance, HR, general affairs & legal.
• Healthcare: nurses, midwives & public health nurses.

Combining specialist industry knowledge with the end-to-end system creates complementary synergies that improve matching precision & conversion. QUICK also focuses on markets with persistent structural talent shortages, building a business structure less exposed to economic fluctuations.

QUICK’s job-change websites include Kensetsu & Setsubi Kyujin Database (construction, equipment & plant), Answers (pharmaceutical industry), MR BiZ (MR roles), Sekokan Plus (construction management), Automotive Jobs, Kango-roo! (nursing) & Seibishi JOBS (auto mechanics).

Recruiting

This is the company’s founding business. QUICK provides job advertising media & recruitment support tailored to client companies’ hiring needs, with one-stop services spanning the entire recruitment process, from initial hiring activity through to post-hire talent development.

Within its core job advertising business, QUICK operates primarily as an agency, purchasing advertising space from job media & reselling it to clients. It also handles advertisement production under a “sales consignment” model, earning a sales commission from the job media operator.

QUICK recommends media suited to each client’s hiring needs, centred on aggregation-type job media (search-engine-style job media that aggregate listings from multiple websites) such as Indeed & Kyujin Box, alongside industry- & occupation-specific job media. Following Recruit’s discontinuation of its pay-per-listing recruitment media, Indeed has become QUICK’s core job advertising offering. For these placements, QUICK receives advertising fees from client companies based on job listing clicks, in addition to fees for advertisement operation & management.

Track record & broad product range. Having handled job advertising for over 45 years, QUICK has accumulated extensive know-how in attracting target candidates. It holds Indeed’s top-tier “Platinum Partner” certification, awarded in January 2023. Where Indeed alone proves weaker in certain regions or occupations, QUICK also proposes Kyujin Box & specialist media. QUICK is one of only a few companies that both rank among Japan’s top handlers of Indeed & Kyujin Box & offer a proprietary applicant tracking system, Q-mate.

One-stop solution. QUICK supports clients across the entire recruitment value chain – from upstream strategy & planning through applicant handling & selection to post-hire training – & receives HR operations fees directly from clients for this support. Its recruitment strategy consulting covers hiring concepts, target candidate profiles & headcount, compensation & recruitment methods, extending to brochures, aptitude tests, interviewer training, AI-driven efficiency & partial process outsourcing.

Local Information Service

Operated by Colorful Company (acquired 2003, Hokuriku region), this segment covers regional magazine publishing, leaflet distribution & face-to-face consulting under the CO-CO-COLOR brand. Indeed-related web recruitment support in Hokuriku has grown significantly, outpacing traditional magazines & leaflets. Sales derive from advertising placed in publications, distribution fees, & success-based referral fees from hiring companies, housing manufacturers & wedding venues.

HR Platform

Operated by HR Vision, this segment runs Nihon no Jinjibu, an information portal for HR & labour affairs whose registered users include 95% of major listed companies, plus HR conferences attended by ~40,000 people annually. It earns advertising revenue from HR service providers & sells speaking slots & advertising space at events.

Overseas

Overseas operations focus primarily on supporting Japanese companies. Sales break down as North & Central America 59%, Europe 35% & Asia 6%. QUICK provides personnel placement & staffing in the US & UK, & personnel placement in Germany, the Netherlands, Vietnam, Thailand & Mexico.

Medium-term plan (FY 3/27–3/29)

QUICK updates its 3-year medium-term plan annually on a rolling basis. It targets FY 3/29 sales of ¥41.2bn, a +6.7% CAGR from FY 3/26, with GP growing at a comparable pace. OP is set to remain broadly flat over the 3 years (CAGR +0.2%), whilst OPM falls from 13.5% to 11.2%.

This reflects a decision to prioritise medium-to-long-term profit growth by front-loading investment in its service brand & flagship site, ANDPRO, alongside higher IT & outsourcing costs to improve productivity, & investment in human capital. In FY 3/27, IT-related expenses & human capital investment drive SG&A growth beyond that of sales & GP, resulting in an OP decline of >10%. In FY 3/28, ANDPRO promotional spending keeps SG&A elevated, with OP up only marginally. From FY 3/29, ANDPRO investment is set to stabilise & contribute meaningfully to profit, with annual OP growth forecast to exceed 10%.

Company (¥bn)	FY 3/26	FY 3/27 CoE	FY 3/28 CoE	FY 3/29 CoE	3-year CAGR
Sales	33.9	34.8	37.2	41.2
YoY		+2.6%	+6.8%	+11.0%	+6.7%
GP	22.6	23.4	24.7	27.4
YoY		+3.5%	+5.6%	+11.1%	+6.7%
GPM	66.6%	67.2%	66.4%	66.5%
OP	4.6	4.1	4.2	4.6
YoY		-10.3%	+1.2%	+10.8%	+0.2%
OPM	13.5%	11.8%	11.2%	11.2%
NP	4.2	2.8	2.8	3.1
YoY		-32.5%	+1.0%	+10.9%	-8.9%

Source: Compiled by Storm Research from company data.

Human Resources Services strategy

QUICK aims to strengthen job seeker acquisition through branding, functional enhancement & content expansion of ANDPRO, whilst raising service quality through consultant skills development & AI-driven efficiency, & accelerating junior employee development.

Objective of ANDPRO. QUICK previously built individual websites for each industry vertical, each requiring separate SEO & content work. System upgrades, Google algorithm updates & AI-driven search increased that burden. ANDPRO is a central platform linking to each specialist site, so common work is handled once centrally & promotion is consolidated. Beyond cost reduction, ANDPRO aims to raise brand recognition & improve profitability by increasing the share of job seekers sourced directly through QUICK’s own channels, reducing fees paid to external platforms such as BizReach. In FY 3/27, ANDPRO development is capitalised; in FY 3/28, brand promotion is expensed.

AI could accelerate matching automation in part-time, administrative & bulk hiring. QUICK, however, concentrates on specialist, high-career, high-income placement, where the risk of AI substitution remains limited, & views AI as an opportunity for consultants to focus on work requiring specialist knowledge & interpersonal skills.

QUICK divested WORK PROJECT (childcare worker staffing & nursery management) on 1 July 2026, after difficulty securing childcare workers & limited synergies.

Human Resources Services (¥bn)	FY 3/26	FY 3/27 CoE	FY 3/28 CoE	FY 3/29 CoE	3-year CAGR
Sales	23.5	23.7	25.2	28.2
YoY		+0.8%	+6.7%	+11.8%	+6.3%
OP	3.6	3.5	3.4	3.7
YoY		-3.4%	-2.4%	+8.7%	+0.8%
OPM	15.5%	14.9%	13.6%	13.2%

Recruiting strategy

The segment aims to strengthen its one-stop offering from recruitment strategy through selection, hiring & post-hire training, develop new products & use external partners for new client acquisition. In May 2024, QUICK acquired Career-tasu’s nursing student career support business, now “Kango Roo! Shukatsu”, to build brand awareness from the student stage & secure top-of-mind awareness when nurses later consider career changes. It currently contributes no sales or profit, & investment will weigh on segment margins.

Recruiting (¥bn)	FY 3/26	FY 3/27 CoE	FY 3/28 CoE	FY 3/29 CoE	3-year CAGR
Sales	3.7	4.1	4.5	5.0
YoY		+11.8%	+8.0%	+11.4%	+10.4%
OP	1.1	1.1	1.2	1.2
YoY		-4.5%	+6.9%	+5.5%	+2.5%
OPM	30.9%	26.4%	26.1%	24.7%

Local Information Service strategy

As advertising shifts from print to web, QUICK will maintain magazine sales whilst expanding SNS advertising for restaurants & shops, Indeed for recruitment, & event-linked media for housing. Staff transfers from Career System are expected to weigh on FY 3/27 profitability, with OP expanding in line with sales from FY 3/28.

Local Information Service (¥bn)	FY 3/26	FY 3/27 CoE	FY 3/28 CoE	FY 3/29 CoE	3-year CAGR
Sales	3.1	3.2	3.3	3.5
YoY		+3.3%	+4.3%	+7.0%	+4.9%
OP	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.6
YoY		+0.8%	+5.1%	+7.5%	+4.4%
OPM	16.0%	15.7%	15.8%	15.8%

HR Platform strategy

Nihon no Jinjibu faces headwinds as similar sites & events fragment HR service providers’ advertising budgets. QUICK plans to review its advertising products & conference format & broaden content, targeting a return to growth in FY 3/28–3/29.

HR Platform (¥bn)	FY 3/26	FY 3/27 CoE	FY 3/28 CoE	FY 3/29 CoE	3-year CAGR
Sales	1.1	1.1	1.2	1.3
YoY		-1.1%	+7.2%	+7.5%	+4.5%
OP	0.5	0.4	0.4	0.4
YoY		-20.2%	+7.9%	+8.3%	-2.3%
OPM	42.2%	34.1%	34.3%	34.6%

Overseas strategy

QUICK has 7 locations in the US &, in Europe, entities in the Netherlands & Germany under its UK business. Policy changes & geopolitical risk remain concerns, & some European clients are cautious amid the situation in the Middle East. Having faced margin pressure in new locations’ first 1–2 years, QUICK expects margins to improve alongside sales growth as these locations mature.

Overseas (¥bn)	FY 3/26	FY 3/27 CoE	FY 3/28 CoE	FY 3/29 CoE	3-year CAGR
Sales	2.6	2.7	3.0	3.2
YoY		+6.6%	+8.8%	+8.8%	+8.1%
OP	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.3
YoY		-0.6%	+47.6%	+37.9%	+26.5%
OPM	6.6%	6.2%	8.4%	10.6%

Earnings

1Q 3/27 results

Sales grew +5.2% YoY to ¥10.4bn (29.8% progress against the FY plan). Human Resources Services performed in line with plan on solid hiring demand from manufacturing, IT & nursing clients. Recruiting sales rose +24.1% YoY as Indeed & industry-specific, employee-focused & part-time media grew beyond expectations, & Overseas sales rose +21.2% YoY.

GP increased +7.2% YoY to ¥7.7bn (33.1% progress), with GPM up +1.4ppt to 74.6% on nurse & specialist recruitment & higher Indeed-driven advertising sales. SG&A rose +9.0% YoY to ¥4.8bn, lifting the SG&A-to-sales ratio from 44.4% to 46.0%, on consultant hiring & compensation, IT spending for AI tools, infrastructure & security, & office expansion costs. Most ANDPRO development spending this year is capitalised.

OP increased +4.6% YoY to ¥3.0bn, a 72.3% progress rate against the FY plan. 1Q ordinarily accounts for ~60% of FY OP, so the elevated progress rate reflects strong Recruiting & Overseas performance. NP rose +9.4% YoY to ¥2.1bn, helped by the absence of prior-year impairment & liquidation losses.

FY 3/27 outlook

QUICK forecasts sales of ¥34.8bn (+2.6% YoY), GP of ¥23.4bn (+3.5%), OP of ¥4.1bn (-10.3%) & NP of ¥2.8bn (-32.5%). The OP decline reflects app & content development costs & human capital investment. The sharp NP decline reflects a non-recurring ¥1.2bn gain on sale of investment securities in the previous year.

Segment results

Segment (¥m)	3/26 sales	1Q 3/27 sales	YoY	3/27 CoE sales	3/26 OP	1Q 3/27 OP	YoY	3/27 CoE OP
HR Services	23,478	7,548	+2.5%	23,655	3,640	2,649	+0.2%	3,518
Recruiting	3,708	1,008	+24.1%	4,146	1,145	349	+90.7%	1,094
Regional Info Services	3,054	785	+5.4%	3,156	490	138	-17.9%	494
HR Platform	1,127	324	-8.7%	1,115	476	151	-16.1%	380
Overseas	2,557	710	+21.4%	2,726	169	53	+26.2%	168

HR Services. Steady hiring demand across electrical, mechanical, semiconductor & chemical manufacturing, alongside IT, pharmaceuticals & nursing, supported placement growth. Specialist fields such as construction management, IT consulting & automotive mechanics continue to face structural labour shortages. OPM fell -0.8ppt to 35.1% on IT & human capital costs. For FY 3/27, the WORK PROJECT divestment reduces 2Q–4Q segment sales by ¥800m; excluding this, sales growth reaches +4%. Restricted stock expenses rise from 3Q, & ANDPRO’s full acquisition & cost benefits are expected from FY 3/29.

Recruiting. Strong Indeed demand drove a significant increase in active transactions, & QUICK shifted clients swiftly following Recruit’s discontinuation of pay-to-list media. Positioning as a “client agent” rather than a sales agent for individual media has helped win share, & AI-powered interview services added consulting orders. OPM rose +12.1ppt to 34.6% on an Indeed PLUS-focused strategy that lifted sales productivity per employee & revenue per client. FY OP is guided down -4.5% on Kango Roo! Shukatsu investment & outsourcing costs.

Regional Info Services. Indeed-related revenue grew significantly on hiring demand, new clients & high retention, offsetting weaker magazines. OP fell -17.9% as transferred Career System staff have yet to contribute, but performance is tracking ahead of plan.

HR Platform. Online advertising fell as HR tech companies shifted from brand-building to retention & efficiency, becoming more selective with advertising. OP declined -16.1%, primarily on lower sales; FY OP is guided -20.2% on continued system investment.

Overseas. All regions grew. The US benefited from higher-fee placements, Mexico from local Japanese manufacturers, the UK & Europe from new clients & higher-salary placements, & Vietnam & Thailand from new job openings. OP rose +26.2% to ¥53m, ahead of plan; FY guidance appears conservative relative to 1Q progress.

Capital allocation & shareholder returns

QUICK’s cash ratio reached 50.2% of total assets & its equity ratio 76.5% in 1Q 3/27, both elevated. QUICK recognises balance sheet efficiency as an area for improvement. Over FY 3/27–3/29, against planned operating cash flow of ¥20.3bn, it intends to allocate ¥9.7bn to investment & ¥9.6bn to shareholder returns, with additional strategic investment in business expansion, DX, alliances & M&A.

Investment is split roughly half to human capital (skills, recruitment, compensation & restricted stock), half to existing businesses (nursing recruitment sites & apps, internal systems & AI, offices & external partners), & a few percentage points to new business areas, centred on ANDPRO.

From FY 3/27, QUICK has introduced an annual floor dividend of ¥38, paying the higher of ¥38 or a 70% payout ratio, & targets a total payout ratio exceeding 100% through share buybacks of at least ¥3bn. Repurchased shares may be used for restricted stock awards rather than retired.

Atom Planning, the asset management company of QUICK’s Honorary Chairman, sold 900,000 shares (~5% of shares outstanding) in February 2025 to improve liquidity, & continues to hold 16.9%, with no current indication of further sales.

Management

In June 2026, Ichiro Kawaguchi, President since 2019, succeeded founder Tsutomu Wano as Chairman, Representative Director & Group CEO, & Yoshiki Nakai became President & Representative Director. Mr Wano became Honorary Chairman & Director.

Name	Position	Background
Ichiro Kawaguchi (69)	Chairman, Representative Director & Group CEO	Joined Recruit in 1979; Managing Director at transcosmos from 1999; joined QUICK in 2005 & led expansion of the recruitment placement business; President from 2019.
Yoshiki Nakai (63)	President & Representative Director	Joined QUICK in 1989; Director from 2005; President of KCC (now Colorful Company) from 2011; Managing Director from 2022.
Tsutomu Wano	Director & Honorary Chairman	Joined Recruit in 1976; founded QUICK Planning in 1980; Group CEO from 2005 to 2026.

ESG

Environment. With no manufacturing facilities, QUICK’s environmental impact is minimal; its focus is an environment that supports employee wellbeing & performance.

Social. Consolidated employees reached 1,682 at end-FY 3/26 (+80 YoY). Turnover improved 0.3ppt to 9.5%, & the return-to-work rate after childcare leave rose 3.1ppt to 95.7%. QUICK is certified as a Health & Productivity Management Outstanding Organization 2026 (Large Enterprise Category) & ranked 15th of ~20,000 companies in OpenWork’s “Best Companies to Work For 2026”.

Governance. QUICK has an Audit & Supervisory Committee. The 13-member board includes 10 directors excluding committee members (2 outside directors, both women) & 3 Audit & Supervisory Committee directors, all outside. Voluntary Nomination & Remuneration Committees each comprise 2 internal & 3 outside directors.

Major shareholders

Shareholder	Stake (%)
Atom Planning Limited	16.91
The Master Trust Bank of Japan, Ltd. (Trust Account)	10.49
BBH for Fidelity Low-Priced Stock Fund	5.21
AVI Japan Opportunity Trust PLC	3.29
Custody Bank of Japan, Ltd. (Trust Account)	2.63
Tsutomu Wano	2.45
QUICK Employees’ Stockholding Association	2.27
Nobuaki Nakajima	1.89
Kizuki Hayashi	1.49
Takateru Murakami	1.43

Source: Company, as of 31 March 2026.

Financial summary

¥m	FY 3/22	FY 3/23	FY 3/24	FY 3/25	FY 3/26
Net sales	23,591	27,795	29,487	32,501	33,925
Gross profit	15,074	18,420	19,911	21,385	22,588
SG&A	11,728	13,933	14,946	16,851	18,004
Operating profit	3,346	4,487	4,965	4,533	4,584
Ordinary profit	3,424	4,544	5,030	4,611	4,690
Profit attributable to owners of parent	2,248	3,262	3,506	3,584	4,159
Cash & deposits	10,510	12,276	13,056	15,053	13,284
Total assets	18,003	20,179	22,043	25,131	25,946
Total net assets	12,098	13,725	16,420	17,842	19,380
Operating cash flow	3,844	3,546	2,974	4,159	2,727
Investing cash flow	-477	-498	-750	-224	-2,708
Dividends paid	-867	-1,017	-1,493	-1,963	-1,865

Source: Company. Figures rounded from ¥ thousands.