Maruko

Overview

Maruko began in 1978 in Nara Prefecture, Japan, as a manufacturer and seller of textile products, and is credited by the company as the first in Japan's women's-underwear home-sales industry to sell foundation garments as coordinated sets. Over the following decades it grew a nationwide network of affiliated sales companies and retail outlets, listed its shares on the Osaka Securities Exchange in 1996 (later moving to the Tokyo Stock Exchange), and expanded into related lines such as body-care cosmetics, bridal wear and health foods. In 2016 Maruko entered into a capital and business alliance with RIZAP Group and became part of the RIZAP Group family of companies. In October 2018, to mark the original company's 40th anniversary, the group moved to a holding-company structure: the listed parent was renamed MRK Holdings Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Stock Exchange, ticker 9980), while the women's-innerwear and maternity/baby operating business was spun into a newly established operating subsidiary (incorporated April 24, 2018) that kept the "Maruko Co., Ltd." name. In 2022 the group's maternity/baby subsidiary, Angeliebe, was absorbed into Maruko Co., Ltd. by merger. Today Maruko Co., Ltd. sells its "Body Design" shapewear lines and related products chiefly through a network of company-run "Maruko Salon" fitting locations across Japan, supported by consultants the company calls "body concierges," alongside an online shop and a mobile app.