ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Yoshihisa Suzuki, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) will use its employee shareholding association to introduce a stock compensation scheme with the objective of fostering awareness among employees of raising corporate value.

Under the scheme, when performance exceeds a certain level, members of the employee shareholding association will be provided with a special incentive payment, granted in the form of stock to the equivalent amount. Currently, enrollment in the employee shareholding association exceeds 98%, but with the new establishment of this scheme it will raise ITOCHU employees’ awareness of participating in management, promote continued employment and enhance medium- to long-term corporate value.

An outline of this scheme is as follows:

(1) If consolidated net profit attributable to ITOCHU exceeds 400 billion yen, a special incentive will be calculated twice yearly, forming the funds to buy the equivalent amount of ITOCHU stock from the market through the employee shareholding association, acquiring for each employee stock to the equivalent sum of the special incentive.

(2) The amount of each special incentive is determined based on consolidated net profit and the employee's position.

ITOCHU has adopted the motto of being “a company where employees feel deep satisfaction with their jobs even when it is tough” and has rolled out policies to enable each and every employee to maximize the display of their “individual capabilities.”
The introduction of this scheme will advance a higher level of shared value between employees and shareholders and strive to further foster awareness of raising corporate value.