381 Japanese schools pay a Nasdaq company to run their teams
LEIFRAS, a Japanese company listed on the Nasdaq, runs club activities at 381 schools where teachers would otherwise coach on top of teaching. In September 2026 it agreed to buy a soccer school in Canada for about $13,040.
LEIFRAS is a Japanese youth sports company that listed on the Nasdaq in October 2025, selling 1,250,000 American Depositary Shares at $4.00 each, according to its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It runs its own network of sports schools, which had more than 70,000 active members across more than 2,600 facility locations at the end of 2025. School boards also pay it to run their club activities.
In Japanese public schools, teachers usually serve as club advisors on top of a full teaching load. The company's annual report, filed April 8, 2026, says those teachers "face significant capacity burdens on top of their teaching duties, resulting in long working hours and low incentives to provide high-quality services." Municipal Boards of Education and private school corporations sign contracts, and LEIFRAS staffs and runs the clubs.
At the end of 2025, those contracts covered 381 schools in 68 cities and towns, up from 347 schools in 45 a year earlier. About two thirds are elementary schools. The company puts its repeat contract rate with municipalities at approximately 89 percent.
On September 16, 2026, LEIFRAS filed a report saying it had agreed to buy all 100 shares of A To Sports, a soccer school in the Greater Victoria area of British Columbia, for a cash price of 2 million yen, which the filing converts to about $13,040. The agreement requires Mr. Takao to keep serving as a director or on site manager for five years after closing, and the seller and Mr. Takao agreed not to compete with the school anywhere in British Columbia for five years. The company's announcement notes that Langford, in the Greater Victoria area, grew its population by 31.8 percent from 2016 to 2021, citing Statistics Canada's 2021 Census.
The deal is signed but not closed. The filing says it is expected to take effect on January 1, 2027, once customary closing conditions are met or waived.
