LogProstyle Inc. CEO Yasuyuki Nozawa speaks during an interview in Tokyo on April 8, 2025. (Kyodo)
TOKYO (Kyodo) — A Tokyo-based real estate company has chosen an unorthodox funding strategy by listing in New York before going public in its home market as it aims to popularize Japanese-style inns in the United States.
LogProstyle Inc., which operates traditional-style inns with tatami rooms in Tokyo, Yokohama, and Okinawa mainly targeted at foreign tourists, listed its shares on the NYSE American stock exchange in late March, in a rare initial public offering for a Japanese company.
The company, set up in 2006, aims to expand its operations to the United States in collaboration with local partners and is considering Los Angeles and Seattle among potential locations for its inns.
“We chose the U.S. listing to boost our name recognition in the United States,” CEO Yasuyuki Nozawa said in a recent interview. “We want to target people who want to experience something new when staying in a hotel.”
The popularity of Japanese-style inns among tourists is growing, with the recent depreciation of the yen boosting the number of foreign visitors to Japan to a record 36.87 million in 2024.
The inbound tourism boom has helped build a wider recognition of the type of accommodation that LogProstyle offers, Nozawa said.
LogProstyle is also considering running inns in the Middle East, a promising region where Japanese culture such as anime and manga is popular, he said.
Nozawa said he prioritized the listing in New York because his company was valued higher in the United States than Japan in the preparatory process.
The company, which also develops condominiums, posted sales of 14.1 billion yen ($99 million) and an operating profit of 939 million yen for the year ended March 2024.
AloJapan.com