rYojbaba is a Fukuoka-based labor consultancy and osteopathic clinic operator that listed on Nasdaq last summer and spent the following year proving how thin the public-company version of that franchise really is. The founder, Ryoji Baba, still holds roughly seventy percent of the vote, and the equity now trades below the offering price even after a year of partnership headlines and an artificial-intelligence product launch. The investment debate is not whether Japan has a workplace-stress problem. It is whether a regional clinic chain plus a founder-dependent consulting book can support a tens-of-millions capitalization after the first audited year as a listed company produced an operating loss, a halved consulting line, two material control weaknesses, an auditor switch, and a chief-executive carousel that ran from late March through mid-May.
Revenue contracted to just over $9 million. Consulting roughly halved to about $1.6 million. Operating profit flipped into a loss of about $0.8 million. The thin reported profit of about $0.1 million exists only because a deferred-tax credit more than filled the operating hole. Year-end cash rose to about $6 million after the offering. Shareholders who treat that cash pile as proof of franchise strength are mixing financing proceeds with earned surplus. Operating cash stayed positive because receivables were collected, not because store economics improved.
The counterargument is real and should be stated plainly. Clinic repeat rates remain high, the Kyushu network still produces the bulk of cash, and a March labor-support agreement sized at $3.2 million is large relative to last year's consulting book. If that contract converts into recognized revenue and the listing-cost bulge fades, operating profit can return without any heroic expansion. What the market is pricing at a mid-single-digit sales multiple on shrinking sales is that conversion plus a clean governance path. Neither has been demonstrated in a filed period since the offering.