ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Masahiro Okafuji, President & CEO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) has reached a basic agreement with Mazda Motor Corporation (headquartered in Fuchu-cho, Aki-gun, Hiroshima; Takashi Yamanouchi, Representative Director and Chairman of the Board, President & CEO; hereinafter “Mazda”) on acquiring majority shares of Toyo Advanced Technologies Co., Ltd. headquartered in Minami-ku, Hiroshima; Yasuto Tatsuta, President; hereinafter “Toyo Advanced Technologies”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Mazda.

The principal business of Toyo Advanced Technologies is to manufacture and sell machine tools and automobile parts. In particular, it has Japan’s top class market share in internal grinders, which are essential for manufacturing precision machinery components. The history of Toyo Advanced Technologies dates back to 1929, when it began manufacturing grinding machines in house for the then Toyo Kogyo Co., Ltd. (today’s Mazda) as one of its divisions. The machine tool manufacturing technology of the brand “TOYO” cultivated within the automobile manufacturer, has earned considerable respect in a number of industrial fields. Automobile parts manufactured by Toyo Advanced Technologies are of high quality and well received by Mazda and other auto　manufacturer.

ITOCHU purchased additional shares of Mazda in November 2010 as its longtime business partner and has been seeking to further expand the strategic partnership with Mazda This acquisition of shares of Toyo Advanced Technologies enhances such partnership and leads to maximize the corporate value of Toyo Advanced Technologies by increasing business opportunities through the overseas sales networks of ITOCHU based on high brand awareness of the TOYO brand with ongoing technological support of Mazda.

Overview of Toyo Advanced Technologies: