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Mitsui to participate in U.S. Media Business Incubator FactoryMade Ventures

Nov. 19, 2014


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Mitsui & Co., Ltd. ("Mitsui", Head Office: Tokyo, President and CEO; Masami Iijima) has agreed to invest in FactoryMade Venture LLC, a U.S. Media Business Incubator ("FactoryMade") and also to form a strategic alliance to jointly create, incubate and fund content, intellectual property and new media businesses.

With the market size of approximately US$ 300 billion (Approx. ¥30 trillion), the U.S. media market is the largest in the world and expected to show stable increase, due to continuous population driven by Latino and economic growth. The market is also home to new technology and business model, such as Video on Demand and SNS, which will quickly spill over to and have significant influence over the global market.

With its headquarters in Los Angeles, California, FactoryMade is an incubator that creates innovative media business leveraging its network in Hollywood and profound knowledge in the industry. FactoryMade enjoys a solid reputation within the industry with its track record of building El Rey Network, a new television channel targeting increasing Latino audiences.

Mitsui has been long engaged in satellite broadcasting businesses, pay channel businesses and content businesses in Japan. Leveraging its knowledge and capability, Mitsui aims to enter into the U.S. media market by making the investment to FactoryMade.

Positioning FactoryMade as a strategic partner to make an entry into U.S. media market with the investment, Mitsui aims to participate in the projects to be developed by FactoryMade and, in the longer term, envisions to foster broad collaboration among with FactoryMade, such as importing and exporting content between Japan and the U.S.

FactoryMade

Corporate Name FactoryMade Vetures LLC
Head Office Santa Monica, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Year of Establishment September, 2011
Representative John Fogelman, CEO
Shareholders Mitsui 5%, Others 95%
Business Activities Incubation of new media businesses

El Rey Network

Corporate Name El Rey Network LLC
Head Office Austin, TX, USA
Year of Establishment December, 2013
Business Activities Cable Network

Notice:
This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Mitsui's current assumptions, expectations and beliefs in light of the information currently possessed by it and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Such risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause Mitsui's actual results, financial position or cash flows to be materially different from any future results, financial position or cash flows expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors referred to above include, but are not limited to, those contained in Mitsui's latest Annual Securities Report and Quarterly Securities Report, and Mitsui undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.
This announcement is published in order to publicly announce specific facts stated above, and does not constitute a solicitation of investments or any similar act inside or outside of Japan, regarding the shares, bonds or other securities issued by us.

Information

For inquiries on this matter, please contact

Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
Corporate Communications Division
Telephone: +81-80-5912-0321
Facsimile: +81-3-3285-9819
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