Let me explain the financial highlights for FY 2024. Consolidated revenue increased 0.2% year-on-year to JPY 352.7 billion. Industrial machinery business saw a moderate recovery in demand, but revenue decreased from last year, when the order backlog was at a high level, especially in the first half. In the automotive and transportation business, downward trend in automobile production continued through the second half of the year. On the other hand, we were affected by the weaker yen compared to the previous year. As a result, operating income was JPY 17.3 billion, down 26.8% year-on-year, mainly due to the negative impact of volume effects. Both revenue and operating income exceeded the revised plan announced in November last year.
By region, net sales decreased in Japan and Europe year-on-year due to the factors mentioned earlier, but increased in the Americas, China, Asia, and other, mainly due to the impact of the weaker yen. The year-on-year change factors in operating income in the industrial machinery business are shown here. Although the weaker yen had a positive effect, operating income declined by JPY 5.4 billion from the volume effect due to decreased sales and an increase in fixed costs such as investment in people. Change factors in operating income in the automotive and transportation business are shown here. There was a positive impact from the variable cost ratio following the efforts to improve profitability, but also a negative volume effect due to the decline in revenue. Furthermore, the temporary subsidy effect we had in the first quarter of FY 2023 disappeared.
As part of the rapid promotion of selection and concentration, we incurred expenses related to the termination of production at THK RHYTHM Malaysia, resulting in a loss of JPY 1.2 billion in other income and expenses. As a result, operating income decreased by JPY 1 billion. Regarding our financial position, total assets were JPY 567.4 billion, up by JPY 11 billion year-on-year. I will not go into details due to time constraints, but the main points are as follows. Based on our capital policy toward early realization of ROE of over 10% announced in November last year, we continued to repurchase our shares up to JPY 40 billion or 20 million shares. As of the end of December 2024, we have repurchased a cumulative total of JPY 4 billion or 1.1 million shares.
As of the end of January 2025, we have completed the buyback of JPY 19.9 billion or 5.42 million shares. For further details, please refer to the numbers in the document. Next, let me explain our current order status and earnings forecast for FY 2025. Looking at orders received by region for the industrial machinery business, the recovery trend continued until the first half of last year, while orders in China slowed down and remained roughly flat in other regions in the second half.
In addition, taking into account the current signs of improvement in the order situation, our FY 2025 forecast is revenue of JPY 363.5 billion, operating income of JPY 23.5 billion, income before income taxes of JPY 24.5 billion, and profit attributable to owners of the parent of JPY 18 billion. This concludes my financial results briefing. I am Teramachi, President of THK. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us today. First, I have declared that THK will thoroughly strengthen what needs to be strengthened and courageously change what needs to be changed. Now we'd like to share with you the specific measures we will take for the early realization of ROE of over 10% and commit to this goal.
I took over as president from Chairman Akihiro Teramachi in January 2024 and listened to the voices of people inside and outside the company while confronting THK's challenges head-on. As a result, I came to the conclusion that a comprehensive review of our previous management goals was necessary and announced a new management policy of early realization of ROE of over 10%. Let me explain the indicators and measures we have considered to achieve this goal. First of all, our corporate philosophy remains unchanged, which is providing innovative products to the world and generating new trends to contribute to the creation of an affluent society. This demonstrates THK's raison d'être, which is to contribute to the realization of an affluent society by resolving various social issues through our products and solutions.
Our vision to achieve this goal is to transition to a manufacturing and innovative services company, and there is no change to the three pillars of our growth strategy. Expansion of business areas through full scale globalization, development of new business areas, and change in business style. In pursuing these goals, we have been working to further strengthen our sustainability and ESG initiatives. The background to the revision of our management targets previously set as milestones toward realizing a manufacturing and innovative services company is the significant changes in the external environment since then, as shown in this slide. In this environment, our ROE has been sluggish and falls short of the expectations of our shareholders.
We take this seriously. This situation is partly, but not totally attributable to external factors, and the main factor is that our company fails to respond to those changes in a timely and appropriate manner.
After much reflection, we have now decided to set new management indicators and measures to achieve them based on our new management policy of early realization of ROE of over 10%. As management indicator, the denominator required capital is set at JPY 300 billion, and numerator is set at JPY 40 billion, which is the operating income required to achieve net profit of JPY 30 billion. To achieve this, we will promote management that emphasizes profitability and capital efficiency and pursue business selection and concentration with an awareness of capital costs, execute highly disciplined investments that strengthen the competitiveness of the business for sustainable growth, and revise our capital policies. Furthermore, we will strive to evolve our corporate governance to increase the effectiveness of these measures. This is the path to ROE of over 10%.
Basically, we will achieve our targets through our own efforts without relying on increased revenue from market growth. In other words, we will push ahead with reforms in both industrial machinery and automotive and transportation business without exceptions. To achieve this, the two years up to FY 2026 is defined as a period for structural reform, during which we will promote various reforms, transform into lean, highly profitable structure, and aim to realize ROE of over 10% between FY 2027 and 2029. To repeat myself, THK will thoroughly strengthen what needs to be strengthened and courageously change what needs to be changed. As ROIC fails to exceed the cost of capital or WACC in the automotive and transportation business, investors have been calling for time-bound actions.
Therefore, within the two year restructuring period, we will complete selection and concentration on a different level from the past with a determination that we must change. To repeat the message, we will complete selection and concentration on a different level from the past within two years to meet the expectations of our shareholders. Next, let me talk about the measures for the industrial machinery business to achieve operating income of JPY 40 billion through our own efforts and structural reforms. First, estimated accumulated amount is JPY 2.7 billion. Please see the notes at the bottom of the document for more details. Next, we will reduce fixed costs by JPY 6 billion. The main measures are reorganization of sales offices, workforce optimization through automation in the production division, and optimization of production system. Next, we will generate JPY 14.4 billion by improving the variable cost ratio.
The main measures are optimization of selling price, profitability improvement in new areas, material and parts purchase price optimization, revision of internal and external production, and logistics optimization. When implementing these measures, we will incorporate external knowledge and thoroughly verify them using the PDCA cycle and will promptly introduce additional measures if there are shortcomings. We will achieve operating income of JPY 40 billion through such structural reform and will aim to build on this through M&A and other growth areas. Let me refrain from disclosing profit increase or decrease on the automotive and transportation business due to the reasons mentioned earlier. Next, let me talk about what needs to be strengthened. Currently, in the industrial machinery field, various social issues such as automation, labor shortages, and sustainability are becoming more complex at manufacturing sites.
Until now, we have developed our machine component parts business mainly to solve the problems of machine builders who make machines. Going forward, we will further strengthen our FA solutions business by also focusing on solving the problems of machine users who are beyond the machine builders. To accelerate these efforts, we reorganized our sales team into two machine component parts business and FA solutions business and clarified their roles in April last year. This slide is on the growth of FA solutions business. As you can see, the market is expected to expand significantly to solve problems for not only traditional machine builders, but also machine users. We will maximize added value by adding mechatronics and modules, as well as IoT and AI. Following the reorganization of our sales team last year, we also integrated and reorganized our FA solutions development team this year.
In this process, we will make effective use of our limited capital by focusing on profitability and growth while pursuing selection and concentration. As I just said, we will concentrate our human resources on product development that contributes greatly to sales and profits, and improve development speed and quality. Currently, we generate over JPY 30 billion revenue from mechatronics and modules, AI and IoT, and aim to expand this by 50% to over JPY 45 billion by 2029. Next, in our core business, the machine components parts business, geopolitical risks and market dynamics are currently spreading, not only to developed countries, but also to emerging countries. Looking at the world, the breakdown of GDP between G7 and BRICS member states is almost the same.
Various structural changes are occurring, such as the problem of growth potential, as the population is more than 10 x different, and the coexistence with AI and robots. In addition, structural reforms of industries such as technology and automobiles are also occurring. Until now, global cycle of big waves came and went, followed by even bigger waves. Since last year or so, we have had small waves in various places with huge sudden waves on top of that. Taking these into account, we will set seven priority areas globally with high growth potential, form a task force, increase the market resolution, and reallocate development, production, and sales resources according to the profit structure to be targeted in the future. We will maximize profits by implementing the so-called create, make, and sell cycle at high velocity. Next, let me explain our balance sheet management with emphasis on capital efficiency.
So far, I have explained the measures to increase profits, which is the numerator. As for equity capital, the denominator, our capital policies, including DOE of 8% as shareholder return, will be maintained until early realization of ROE over 10% is achieved, as we announced in November last year. Under such circumstances, we will maintain financial soundness and use cash inflows from operating cash flows and externally procured funds for the following investments over five years up to FY 2029. JPY 91 billion for capital investments centered on automation and minimal upgrades. JPY 12 billion for IT investments centered on a complete renewal of our core system. JPY 5 billion for structural reform costs. JPY 35 billion for growth investments, including M&A, to expand our FA solutions business and human capital investments. We'll then return to our shareholders.
To increase the effectiveness of the initiatives I just explained, we are changing various measures on the business execution side and also working to strengthen corporate governance, including a review of the composition of board of directors as shown here. Furthermore, we will implement various initiatives to continuously improve our corporate value, such as improving our executive compensation system, pursuing and strengthening an optimal board of directors, developing human resources, and accelerating our efforts to address materiality. As I have explained today, THK will thoroughly strengthen what needs to be strengthened and courageously change what needs to be changed with unwavering determination to carry out reforms, and will realize our new management indicator of ROE of over 10% as soon as possible. Thank you very much.