ITOCHU Corporation has decided to acquire capital participation in and conclude a new partnership with PRIME NETWORK INC. (headquartered in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture; Kazuhiro Tabata, President; listed on the JASDAQ Stock Exchange; hereinafter referred to as PRIME). Upon receipt of the third-party allocation of stock made by PRIME, ITOCHU will hold 14.98 percent of its outstanding issues after capital increase. It will also receive preemptive subscription rights for purchase of common stock amounting to 33.4 percent of the total outstanding issues after the allocation.

As a new distribution channel, the mail-order market has been experiencing rapid growth in recent years. In the field of apparel and accessories, the Internet, mobile sites, and TV shopping have become highly popular purchasing means among consumers. TV in particular is anticipated to undergo further evolution as a sales channel along with the expansion of digital broadcasting satellite (BS) broadcasting and the widening of possibilities for media-mix mail-order sales combined with the Internet. We at ITOCHU decided, in favor of the above, the capital and business tie-up as a part of our approaches to develop business in closer contact with consumers.

The plans envision the synergistic effects by the combination of PRIME's know-how and achievements in provision of products for health and beauty with ITOCHU's strength in total lifestyle proposals with famous-brand products To this end, we intend to build a new business making the most of the tie-up's benefits through personnel interchange, cooperation in the aspect of sales promotion, joint development of products, and procurements.
ITOCHU has positioned the Consumer-Related sector as one of its core businesses on a companywide basis. This tie-up will not be limited to the textile business,but lead to the development of synergies among the entire ITOCHU Group.

Reference information

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