ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Masahiro Okafuji, President & CEO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that GL Connect Co., Ltd. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Hiroshi Nakamoto, President & CEO; hereinafter “GLC”), a wholly owned subsidiary of ITOCHU engaging in the corporate finance business, has entered into an underwriting agreement concerning the third-party allotment of new shares with ITOCHU, Aozora Bank, Ltd. (Shinsuke Baba: President and CEO), The Kagoshima Bank, Ltd. (Motohiro Kamimura: President), The Shonai Bank, Ltd. (Hideo Kunii: President), The Juroku Bank, Ltd. (Yukio Murase: President), THE TOHO BANK,LTD. (Seishi Kitamura: President) and The Iyo Bank Ltd. (Iwao Otsuka: President), among others. After the capital increase, ITOCHU will hold 48.87% of the issued shares of GLC, and GLC will become an equity-method affiliate of ITOCHU.

As a finance business arm of the general trading company, GLC has been providing finance functions, taking advantage of its strengths in the commercial distribution fields. By having Aozora Bank, Ltd., a major bank, the five regional banks, including The Kagoshima Bank, Ltd., financial services operators and others as new shareholders, it will become a consortium that organically integrates the functions, knowhow, information and other fortes of each of the new shareholders. As a result, GLC will promote initiatives and business activities that will positively support, among other things, the overseas expansion of corporate customers of the financial institutions (hereinafter, the “corporate customers”) that are GLC’s shareholders, in particular, regional banks, through the provision of a combination of the finance functions and the functions of creating business solutions and the generation and expansion of business opportunities that connect regional cities and metropolitan cities in Japan and overseas, thereby contributing to the revitalization of local economies.
Specific initiatives include the expansion of sales channels in Japan and overseas for corporate customers, the provision of consulting functions for the support of their business expansion, the provision of finance functions in connection with commercial distribution to the shareholders themselves and their corporate customers, and the provision of functions that complement the major shareholders’ own finance business in the aspects of functions, knowhow, risk management and information.