The “Tiger Cub” Sale and BS Exit: Designing “Reversible Assets”

The Moment “Irreversible Assets” Constrain Management

Fuji Media Holdings is selling real estate, including its prized headquarters building, for approximately 350 billion yen. Meanwhile, commercial broadcasters are successively deciding to exit BS 4K broadcasting. At first glance, these seem like completely different decisions. One is an “asset sale,” the other a “business exit.” However, these two news stories pose the same core question.

That question is, “Is this a decision we can reverse later?”

Gaining massive funds in exchange for relinquishing a key property. Or, withdrawing from a new business that required substantial ongoing investment. Both appear to be “irreversible” decisions that, once executed, cannot easily be undone. Managers are often expected to show “resolve” or “decisiveness” in such major choices. Yet, from the perspective of “reversible management,” this very “irreversibility” becomes the greatest risk.

What’s truly important is not the courage to make an irreversible decision. It’s how to design “reversibility” and make choices that, even if they involve exit or sale, do not narrow future options. This time, using the two cases of Fuji’s real estate sale and the broadcasters’ BS exit, we explore concrete management techniques to increase “asset reversibility.”

Fuji’s Real Estate Sale: An Experiment in Shifting from “Ownership” to “Usage Rights”

Fuji is considering a “sale and leaseback,” selling properties including the building it uses and continuing to occupy them as a tenant. This is not merely an asset sale. It’s a bold shift from the form of asset “ownership” to “usage rights.”

There are two key points of reversibility to consider here.

1. Weaving a “Return Path” into the Contract

Is there an option to repurchase the sold asset in the future (a buyback right)? Or, does the long-term lease agreement include clauses allowing flexible adjustment of space in line with the company’s growth or business transformation? In the decision to “let go” of an asset, one must not completely close the door on the possibility of “reacquiring it” later. View it not as a complete sale, but as an “experiment” to reconfigure the portfolio of “highly liquid cash” and “fixed assets.” By pre-setting an evaluation period for this experiment—for example, “verify the use of raised funds and profit improvement effects over 5 years”—the decision becomes more strategic.

2. Observing the Distinction Between Core and Non-Core

Letting go of an asset called a “tiger cub” is a perfect opportunity to question whether that asset was truly core to the business. If you continue using it after the sale, you can observe whether the asset’s “location” or “brand image” was inherently value-creating, or if it was merely the comfort of “holding an asset.” This can be designed as an “observational experiment” to re-identify the source of your company’s competitive advantage. If business continues without a hitch after sale and leaseback, you gain the valuable insight that the core was not the “asset itself,” but the “power of the business utilizing the asset.”

In a retail company I was involved with, we supported the decision to sell a company-owned store in the suburbs to fund opening smaller stores in the city center. At that time, we incorporated into the sale contract a “right of first negotiation for acquiring a property of a certain scale in the same area after 10 years.” This was a minimal reversibility design to preserve a “future option” in case the business model changed and large stores might be needed again.

Broadcasters’ BS Exit: Shifting Perspective from “Sunk Cost” to “Learning Cost”

On the other hand, the successive exits of commercial broadcasters from BS 4K broadcasting represent a decision to “exit” a new business that required substantial investment. What constrains management here is the “sunk cost bias”: “We invested that much, so…” Irreversible management, dominated by the emotion of not wanting to “waste” past investments, stops investing in the future.

“Reversible management” reframes this “sunk cost” as a “learning cost.” To increase the reversibility of an exit decision, the following designs are effective.

1. Clarify Exit Conditions “While Running”

For large-scale investments like the BS 4K business, “exit conditions” should be clarified at the start, alongside the “definition of success.” However, these often remain vague when launching. So, what to do after launching? The key is to regularly update “provisional exit conditions” and compare them with real data. For example, set multiple observation points like “if subscriber numbers don’t reach X million,” “if standalone profitability isn’t achieved by year X,” or “if a X% share isn’t gained in a specific content genre,” and update them quarterly as material for judging “should we continue?” Don’t fix the judgment itself; institutionalize the observation process.

2. Secure “Recovery Routes” for Assets and Know-How

Even when exiting a business, the technology, personnel, know-how, and equipment gained remain as “assets.” A high-reversibility exit involves securing routes to “transplant” these assets to other businesses, rather than returning completely to “zero.” Can the high-definition production know-how cultivated in BS 4K be applied to regular broadcasting or online streaming? Can the value of invested equipment be recovered through other uses or sale? Design exit not as an “endpoint,” but as the starting point of a “resource reallocation process.” This makes the exit itself part of the next “experiment” for growth.

Three Principles for “Reversible Asset Design”

Whether in real estate sales or business exits, the following three principles are effective for increasing reversibility in asset-related decisions.

Principle 1: Separate and Evaluate Ownership and Utility Value

An asset’s value lies not in “owning it” itself, but in “how it is used.” Fuji’s case clearly shows this. Managers need the habit of constantly weighing the “cost of ownership (maintenance, opportunity loss)” against the “value gained from use.” And if ownership is judged not optimal, consider diverse options like sale, lease, or sharing that maintain utility value while departing from ownership. This is the first step to preventing asset “fixation.”

Principle 2: Set “Observation Metrics” for Exit for Each Asset

For all assets (tangible or intangible), set “observation metrics” to measure their effectiveness and “triggers” to consider updating, selling, or exiting. For example, for a company building: “productivity per employee per square meter”; for specific manufacturing equipment: “ratio of operation rate to maintenance cost.” Create a system to regularly question an asset’s “place” based on data, not emotion or custom. Had such metrics existed beforehand, the BS exit decision might have avoided the emotional “sunk cost bias.”

Principle 3: Design “Continuation in a Changed Form” Over “Complete Termination”

The most irreversible decision is to “return everything to a blank slate”: disposing of assets at zero, letting know-how dissipate, severing relationships. In high-reversibility management, even during exit or sale, always design a route to preserve or transfer the asset’s “core” in some form. This might be a “seed” for later reuse in another form or a “catalyst” for collaboration with others. In Fuji’s case, even after selling the building, preserving the “brand value as Fuji’s base” at that location could be considered continuation in a changed form.

Viewing Decisions as “Asset Portfolio Experiments”

Management is nothing but the act of allocating limited resources to various “assets”: personnel, funds, equipment, brand, technology… Fuji’s real estate sale is a change in portfolio, replacing the “real estate” asset with “cash.” The broadcasters’ BS exit is a decision to reallocate the asset of “investment in the future” to “strengthening existing businesses” or “other new ventures.”

The essence of “reversible management” lies in conducting this portfolio reconfiguration not as a “one-time decision,” but as a “hypothesis-based experiment.” And every experiment requires an “exit condition” for when the hypothesis fails and a “learning process” to apply insights gained to the next experiment.

What is your company’s “tiger cub”? Is letting it go truly impossible? Or, is there a “BS business” incurring high costs? Are there clear observation metrics for whether to continue it?

Both clinging to assets and letting them go easily are dangerous. What’s important is to regularly question—based on data and clear observation points, not emotion or custom—whether an asset is truly needed by the company now, and if necessary, have the courage to boldly reconfigure the portfolio while ensuring a “return path.” This is not an irreversible “decision,” but an ongoing “management experiment” for constant optimization.