The encyclopedia · Finance & Accounting · Financial decision · 2010–2026
Old Works (オールド・ワークス), Nagoya apparel ODM with ¥2B sales, bankrupt in 2026
Old Works ran an apparel ODM with ¥2B in sales on thin margins — one client's failure in 2025 froze its money and bankrupted it in 2026.
Old Works (株式会社オールド・ワークス) · 2026-07-17
What happened
Old Works was an apparel manufacturer and wholesaler in Nagoya, founded in 2010, doing ODM/OEM production for other brands plus its own-label online sales and import agency work. Sales exceeded ¥2 billion in the fiscal year ending March 2024.
The model ran on thin margins. The company described its own performance as persistently low-profit and seesawing — and in July 2025 a trading partner went bankrupt, leaving receivables unpaid and squeezing its cash flow.
On 17 July 2026 Old Works stopped business and prepared a self-bankruptcy filing with about ¥910 million in combined liabilities including its affiliate, Old Works Frontier, which received the same treatment.
Why it happened
- Thin-margin ODM work: making clothes for other brands leaves no buffer, and Old Works called its own results 'persistently low-profit and seesawing.'
- One customer's failure was fatal: when a trading partner went bankrupt in July 2025, unpaid receivables froze cash flow — a single point of failure in the money chain.
- No time left to repair: with low margins and a frozen balance sheet, the company judged continuation impossible and went straight to bankruptcy in July 2026.
The lesson
A healthy order book is not a healthy balance sheet: Old Works sold ¥2B a year on margins so thin that one unpaid receivable in 2025 ended the company in 2026.
Aftermath
Old Works stopped business on 17 July 2026 and prepared a self-bankruptcy filing, leaving closing matters to its lawyer. Combined liabilities including affiliate Old Works Frontier were about ¥910 million. The Nagoya company, founded in 2010, did ODM/OEM apparel manufacturing and wholesale, own-label online sales and import agency work, posting sales of more than ¥2 billion in the year ending March 2024. But profitability stayed thin, and when a trading partner went bankrupt in July 2025, unpaid receivables squeezed cash flow until continuation was impossible.
Sources
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