Sanyo Shokai rented Burberry for 45 years — then lost the license and a decade

For 45 years, Sanyo Shokai was Burberry in Japan: the Osaka-founded coat maker held the license that made the British brand a staple of Japanese business dress, and the licensed business was a major source of its revenue. In May 2014, Burberry announced it would let the licensing contract expire in June 2015 and take control of its own operations in Japan.

Sanyo Shokai scrambled to replace what it had lost, launching its own brands — Mackintosh London and Crestbridge — and opening new shops, mainly in urban business areas. But the new labels had less than half the brand familiarity of what they replaced. For the fiscal year ended December 2016, the company announced losses of ¥11.3 billion — the largest in its history.

The losses ran to six consecutive fiscal years. As late as the year ending February 2022, Sanyo was still revising forecasts downward — to sales of ¥38.6 billion, an operating loss of ¥1 billion and an ordinary loss of ¥700 million. Only against the ¥8.9 billion operating loss of 2009 did the numbers look like recovery. The company had survived; the business it was known for had not.