Dec 2022 bnpl acquisitions by Mitsubishi

Yesterday, 26th December 2022 the Japanese giant Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group went shopping in the boxing day sales and picked up:

70% of Kanmu, a Japanese bnpl, valuing the company at ~ USD$190m
(https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Finance/MUFG-to-start-buy-now-pay-later-service-with-Kanmu-acquisition)

A USD$200m investment in Akulaku, a SE Asian based bnpl/digi banking, valuing the co at ~ US$1.5b
(https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/26/akulaku-mufg/)
(https://heaptalk.com/news/mufg-is-reported-to-invest-in-akulaku-worth-us200-million.html)

These are in addition to Mitsubishi acquiring the SE Asian arms of Home Credit on 24th November 2022, a bnpl/pos loan company (https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/mitsubishi-ufj-mufg-expands-in-asia-to-buy-home-credit-units)


These show a megabank can aggressively go on a spending spree, seeing opportunity in bnpl. It's unclear whether any of the acquired companies were profitable, there's not much info available. If we look at Kanmu:

- founded in 2011
- about 6m app downloads
- teens and 20-30yo account for just over 50% of users

I'm not suggesting Mitsubishi will shift out of Asia or even keep buying but it's an example of aggressive acquisitions in the bnpl space and worth a look at. Anyone find more info on these companies? Revenue, profit/loss / users, etc?