Presentation Transcripts

The most important thing I wanted to share with you today is that we have signed an agreement with Hitachi Power Semiconductor Device for the acquisition of their business. Looking back in 2017 when the business integration with MITSUMI ELECTRIC took place, we held management meeting twice among both of our management teams, staying over at a hotel, and analog semiconductors business was a candidate for a sale. However, since we received an excellent presentation from them, we decided to make a firm commitment to the business and we also discussed future M&A candidates. In fact, this M&A was the last target for the first act of our semiconductor M&A strategy. There were four candidates, one of which we failed to acquire, but the last one left in the concept that we thought about in 2017 was actually this Hitachi Power Semiconductor Device. In that sense, I must say that we were really lucky and had a good match. We are pleased to announce today the successful outcome after taking some time for negotiation.

Originally, in the power semiconductor field, Japanese heavy electric machinery manufacturers, mainly in the industrial and electric railway industries, had a strong competitive edge over the rest of the world.
However, with the rapid growth of the EV market in recent years, Japanese power semiconductor manufacturers have fallen behind European and the U.S. competitors.

As for MinebeaMitsumi, since we had integrated a portion of Hitachi's semiconductor division from the past, we maintain a strong relationship with the company including ongoing contract manufacturing of power semiconductors for electric railway systems and other applications.
In addition, MITSUMI ELECTRIC acquired the former Hitachi Hokkai Semiconductor from Renesas Electronics. It is natural to say that Hitachi Power Semiconductor Device and Hitachi Hokkai Semiconductor are sister companies, and they produce different products using the same equipment and machinery inside the same Hitachi Group. There have been a lot of human interaction between the two companies. From a historical standpoint MITSUMI's semiconductors business had a very strong relationship with Hitachi Power Semiconductor Device as a Fab, supplying products under a fabless contract and introducing technology from Hitachi.

The rapid growth of the EV market is expected to be accompanied by the development of recharging infrastructure and the penetration of storage batteries in the future. Together with renewable energy and other factors, large electricity market in the industrial sector is expected to be formed.
The integration of the two companies will accelerate the industry reorganization and create an all-Japan group that lists in the world's top 10 companies in the growing power transistor field (IGBT and SiC).
If we add Hitachi Power Semiconductor Device sales to our current sales, we will exceed 100 billion yen. I am very grateful that we were able to create a 100 billion yen semiconductor business in the past six years.
We will aim to be a competitive manufacturer not only in EVs, but also in niche areas for the huge and growing global electricity market.
Of course, we are serious and fully commit to the business. However, because we are not a manufacturer of semiconductors as the main business, we are not going to go as far as to wager a company's fate. Rather, our strategy is to identify niche areas and aim for high margins there.

We do not disclose the exact acquisition price, but it is generally comparable to the size of the business.