Pokémon has no price, though the pieces of one are known. The Pokémon Company group had ¥834–836bn of net assets in February 2026 and, on our estimate, earns ¥177–245bn a year once one-off gains are set aside, so its book value is about four years of profit. Turning that into a price would mean its three owners agreeing, in writing, which of them owns Pokémon, and no such agreement has been made public. Two risks sit outside the figures altogether. The terms on which the company is allowed to run Pokémon are not public, and paid random packs, which regulators have so far left largely alone, bring in 31–51% of group revenue.
Book value is about four years of profit
On our estimate from Nintendo’s filings, the group made net profit of ¥249–260bn in the year to February 2026, on revenue of ¥1.02–1.05tn. About a fifth of that profit may not recur. The Tokyo parent booked a one-off gain of ¥23.8bn, and a currency gain released through Nintendo’s accounts may also belong to the group. Without them the year’s profit was ¥196–243bn.
Two changes already under way move that figure. Pokémon TCG Pocket is losing players (see Mobile), which takes ¥6–27bn a year off profit after tax. Japan’s standard pack rose in price by 11.1% in May 2026, which adds back at most ¥7.8bn. The result is our range of ¥177–245bn a year. It looks like a floor, because Nintendo’s results for April to September 2026 imply about ¥190bn of group profit in six months (see Nintendo).
Net assets are 3.4–4.7 times that yearly profit, and more than half of them are the parent’s current assets of ¥489.1bn. Nintendo, the only owner that publishes accounts, carries its stake at ¥274–278bn, which is 3.5–4.9 times its share of that profit. Fig. 1 sets the profit beside the book value.
The Pokémon Company group’s net assets equal about four years of its profit
The group’s net profit as reported and with one-offs removed, and its net assets, ¥ billion. Year to February 2026; the profit figures are estimates. Book value is an accounting figure and no market price exists.
- Net profit as reported (estimate)
- Yearly profit with one-offs removed (estimate)
- Net assets (book value)
Show the numbers
| The Pokémon Company group | Net profit as reported (estimate), ¥bn | Yearly profit with one-offs removed (estimate), ¥bn | Net assets (book value), ¥bn | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profit as reported, year to February 2026 | (249–260) | – | – | |
| Profit a year with one-offs removed | – | (177–245) | – | |
| Net assets, February 2026 | – | – | (834–836) |
Net profit as reported (estimate). The group’s net profit, taken from Nintendo’s table of its affiliates with the baseball club removed. It includes a gain on the sale of an investment.
Yearly profit with one-offs removed (estimate). Reported profit less the one-off gains, less the profit Pocket is expected to lose this year, plus the higher pack price in Japan.
Net assets (book value). The Tokyo parent’s filed net assets plus an estimate for its subsidiaries: ¥834.4–835.8bn, or 3.4 to 4.7 years of the normalised profit. Book value is what the accounts record and says nothing about what a buyer would pay.
We put no multiple on the earnings because we hold no market price for a comparable company. Each year of profit a buyer paid for would be worth ¥177–245bn. The only price ever recorded for a share was set in 2005, when 4Kids sold its 3% back to the other owners for $960k, or $32m for the whole company.
No owner can realise it alone, and the tax on a payout is already booked
Nintendo holds 32% of the votes. Creatures and Game Freak hold the rest in proportions that appear on no register. If they split it evenly, as we assume, each has 34%, no owner has a majority, and any two together have 64–68%. Fig. 2 shows the arithmetic.
If Creatures and Game Freak hold equal shares, no owner has a majority and any two together do
Share of the votes, percent. Only Nintendo’s share is on record; the other two are assumed equal.
- On record
- Assumed
- Any pair, above the 50% line
Show the numbers
| Holder | On record, % of votes | Assumed, % of votes | Any pair, above the 50% line, % of votes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nintendo | – | – | ||
| Second owner | – | – | ||
| Third owner | – | – | ||
| Any two owners together | – | – |
Assumed. Creatures’ and Game Freak’s shares are not on any register. We assume the remaining 68% splits evenly; a very uneven split could give one of them a majority.
Any pair, above the 50% line. 64–68%, whether the split is the assumed 32/34/34 or the 32/32/32/4 one data vendor lists.
The owners have taken very little out. Dividends in the nine years to February 2026 came to 1.6% of group profit, against 30% or more at listed Japanese peers; the record is on The Pokémon Company. The parent’s retained earnings have reached ¥413.9bn.
Tax is one reason to wait, and a small one. Nintendo has already set aside ¥55bn of deferred tax on profits its subsidiaries and affiliates have kept, up from ¥38.2bn a year earlier. The filing does not say how much of that line relates to The Pokémon Company. Because Nintendo owns less than a third of the shares, half of any dividend it received would be taxed, and a payout of the parent’s entire retained earnings would cost it about ¥20.3bn. If the whole provision were The Pokémon Company’s, the bill would be ¥26.8–31.8bn. Either way Nintendo already provides for tax of this kind, as Fig. 3 shows, so leaving the profit inside defers the tax and does not avoid it.
A full payout by The Pokémon Company would cost Nintendo ¥20–32bn of tax, against ¥55bn it has already set aside
Nintendo’s deferred tax on the retained profits of its subsidiaries and affiliates (one filed line, not split), against our estimates of the tax on a payout of all the Tokyo parent’s retained earnings, ¥ billion, March 2026.
- Set aside (filed)
- If the parent paid out all ¥414bn (estimate)
- Same, if the whole ¥55bn line is TPC’s (estimate)
Show the numbers
| Nintendo, March 2026 | Set aside (filed), ¥bn | If the parent paid out all ¥414bn (estimate), ¥bn | Same, if the whole ¥55bn line is TPC’s (estimate), ¥bn | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tax set aside on subsidiaries’ and affiliates’ retained profits | – | – | ||
| Tax on a full payout, statutory rule | – | – | ||
| Tax on a full payout, if the ¥55bn is all TPC’s | – | – | (26.8–31.8) |
Set aside (filed). Nintendo’s deferred tax line covers all its subsidiaries and affiliates, not only The Pokémon Company; the filing does not split it.
If the parent paid out all ¥414bn (estimate). On the parent’s ¥413.9bn of retained earnings paid to Nintendo at 32%. Statutory rule: below one-third ownership, half of a dividend is exempt. Retention defers the tax rather than avoiding it.
The larger obstacle is the name. A Japanese domain-dispute panel found in 2019 that The Pokémon Company owns none of the trademarks it was defending; the three founders hold them jointly in Japan and the Nintendo group holds them abroad (see Brand). The one filed description of the company’s purpose, in a 4Kids annual report, says it was set up in 1998 to manage and control all rights to Pokémon worldwide. A sale, a listing or a merger would force the owners to state whether that is a permanent licence or an agency that can be withdrawn. If it can be withdrawn, the earnings follow the trademark registers and book value is the floor under the company’s worth. Creatures’ and Game Freak’s assumed 68% of the profit, ¥120–167bn a year, would then depend on marks that Nintendo holds outside Japan.
The one completed cycle left profit four times higher at its low point
The parent has been through one boom and fall since it took licensing in-house. It earned ¥2.0bn in the year to February 2015 and ¥15.9bn in the Pokémon GO year. Profit then fell by 44.6% to ¥8.8bn, which was still 4.3× the 2015 level. It has risen in each of the 8 years since, to ¥120.1bn, as Fig. 4 shows.
After the 2016 boom, the low point was four times the old high
Net profit of The Pokémon Company’s Tokyo parent, ¥ billion, years to February 2015–2026. The 2026 bar includes a one-off gain of about ¥24bn.
One cycle is thin evidence, and it was a different business. The 2016 boom was a licence fee on a game another company ran. Today a third to a half of revenue comes from packs the group sells itself, and that mix has not yet been through a fall. Without the one-off gain, last year’s rise was 47.2% against the reported 70.7%.
A third to a half of revenue is paid random packs, and regulators have barely touched them
Paper cards and Pocket both sell sealed packs whose contents the buyer cannot see. Together they brought in ¥324–524bn, or 31–51% of group revenue, with paper cards alone at 21–36%. Fig. 5 sets that against the group’s other single exposures. Everything Nintendo pays for the games is at most 5% of revenue, and the Pokémon GO licence 1.25–2.51%.
Paid random packs, on paper and in Pocket, bring in a third to half of the group’s revenue
Estimated share of The Pokémon Company group’s revenue, percent, year to February 2026. Pocket’s fall is revenue expected to be lost in the year to February 2027.
- Paid random packs (estimate)
- Other exposures, for scale (estimates)
Show the numbers
| Line, year to February 2026 | Paid random packs (estimate), % of revenue | Other exposures, for scale (estimates), % of revenue | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paid random packs: cards and Pocket | (30.9–51.4) | – | |
| Of which paper cards | (21.3–36.2) | – | |
| Pocket’s expected fall this year | – | ||
| Nintendo’s payments for games | – | ||
| Pokémon GO licence | – | (1.3–2.5) |
Paid random packs (estimate). Paper cards plus Pokémon TCG Pocket, ¥323.7–524.4bn. The width comes from the card line and from whether Pocket is booked before or after store fees.
Other exposures, for scale (estimates). Pocket’s fall is revenue expected to be lost in the year to February 2027, and is part of the random-pack line above. Nintendo’s payments run from 0.9% if it pays no royalty on overseas sales to 5.0% at the top assumed rate. The Pokémon GO figure is a share of profit set against revenue.
The record of official action is short. A class action filed in the United States in 1999 called the card game illegal gambling; the dismissals were upheld on appeal in 2002. South Korea’s competition authority fined Pokémon Korea about $750 in 2023 over a lucky box of toys that did not list its possible contents, a product-information breach. Korea’s 2024 law requiring odds to be disclosed applies, on its text, to items bought and used inside a video game, and the same authority said that year it regards physical random goods as a different case.
Digital packs have met real rules, and the company’s answer has been to stay out. Pocket did not launch in Belgium or the Netherlands, and Pokémon UNITE closed in both on 30 November 2025. Those are small markets. We have found no regulator that requires odds to be printed on a paper pack.
What it adds up to
The Tokyo parent’s retained earnings stood at ¥413.9bn in February 2026; if nothing is paid out, we estimate ¥496–518bn a year later. The notice is due around the start of June 2027.