In a major mining equipment OEM ownership move, ITOCHU Corporation last week announced that it has agreed to increase its shareholding in Hitachi Construction Machinery Co Ltd (HCM) to 33.4% by acquiring shares held by a special purpose company invested by the investment funds managed, operated or informed by Japan Industrial Partners, Inc. (JIP), through an affiliated company.
ITOCHU had formerly held an effective leading 20.4% stake since August 2022 and said it has no plans for further acquisition of HCM shares – but this 33.4% share now makes it by some distance the leading single company HCM shareholder. Through this transaction, ITOCHU says it “will further deepen its partnership with HCM and support HCM’s medium- to long-term growth and enhancement of corporate value.”
In this transaction, HCJI Holdings, Ltd (HCJI), which is jointly owned on a 50-50 basis by Citrus Investment GK (Citrus), a wholly owned subsidiary of ITOCHU, and JIP’s special purpose company, will acquire JIP’s shareholding. The move is significant as it brings HCM more firmly under the control of another company other than Hitachi Ltd – which reduced its share from 25.4% in late 2025 to 18.36% – at which point HCJI held 25.99%. The Hitachi brand will eventually recede further when HCM rebrands to LANDCROS in 2027.
Ahead of this transaction, Citrus acquired an additional 0.4% of HCM shares through market transactions in early February 2026. As a result of these transactions, ITOCHU’s shareholding ratio in HCM, including direct and indirect holdings, is expected to reach 33.4%. This transaction is expected to be given regulatory clearance between February and April 2026 and HCIJ’s acquisition of the shareholding of JIP’s SPC is expected to be completed in April 2026.
HCM is pursuing sustainable growth and enhancement of corporate value under its medium-term management plan ‘BUILDING THE FUTURE 2025’ focusing on ‘Innovative Solutions,’ ‘Value Chain Expansion,’ ‘Expansion of Operations in the Americas’ and ‘Strengthening People and Corporate Capabilities’ as the pillars of its growth strategy. HCM has already announced that it plans to change its corporate name to LANDCROS Corporation in April 2027 and to accelerate global expansion under a new corporate brand.
Since the capital alliance in 2022, ITOCHU has built a close partnership with HCM and provided support from business and management perspectives. With this additional share acquisition, ITOCHU says it will be more proactive in supporting HCM’s brand transformation and medium-to-long-term growth strategies and will be even more strongly committed from a capital perspective.
In HCM’s key markets, notably North America, ITOCHU will accelerate collaboration by jointly promoting sales, rental, and finance businesses and by pursuing M&A opportunities and new business areas. ITOCHU will also leverage the ITOCHU Group’s expertise in areas such as business management, governance, logistics, finance and ESG to help strengthen HCM’s management foundations and increase its global competitiveness.
Looking at the mining market specifically, HCM faces an uphill challenge in a highly competitive mining equipment OEM space with Komatsu, Caterpillar and Liebherr – and increasingly Chinese groups like XCMG and SANY. That said, compared to its peers, it has made some key advancements in areas like hydraulic excavator long term maintenance expertise and teleoperation.
It was also the first to put a battery trolley large mining truck into operation – the EH4000AC-3 Battery that is running at First Quantum Minerals’ Kansanshi in Zambia. It has also begun a demonstration test of a hybrid dump truck at a mine in South Africa – targeting commercialisation in FY2030. This is a retrofitted EH4000AC-3.
Added to that it is created a unique ecosystem in mining by combining maintenance and service major HEPI; wear parts company Bradken; FMS, open autonomy and fatigue management leader Wenco.
In its latest FY2025 Q3 results it reported that compared to the same period in FY2024 revenue declined year on year in the Americas OEM business while in Oceania, Europe and Asia remained solid. Excluding foreign exchange effects, revenue was flat year on year, supported in part by higher selling prices. In mining specifically, which represents today about 20% of overall sales, in addition to the impact of a stronger yen, it said sluggish resource prices have led to a decline in revenue for both new machine sales and parts & services. This stood at 191.8 billion yen for FY2025 Q3 versus 285.8 billion yen for the same period in 2024. Of this 191.8 billion yen figure, 36% related to new mining excavators and trucks, and the remainder parts and services.
Major mining orders for HCM recently have included a large fleet of EH4000AC-3 mining trucks which includes 30 units split across two operations – Navoi Mining & Metallurgical in Uzbekistan; and a gold mining client in Western Australia. At its largest single customer mine, FQM Kansanshi in Zambia, it is delivering 42 EH4000AC-3 trucks for trolley operation for the S3 expansion. It is also delivering two EX8000-7 excavators to a mine in Peru – the first of this model to be delivered in South America.
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