Policy and System for Dialogue with Shareholders

The head of the department responsible for investor relations (IR) or the director in charge of IR oversees overall communication with shareholders.

The person in charge of IR ensures that the IR department works closely with general affairs, accounting, legal, and human resources departments, which all have a large amount of information that is useful and necessary for maintaining a dialogue with shareholders, and provides him or her with such information in an appropriate and timely manner without interrupting the flow of information between different departments. The person in charge of IR regularly provides useful information, opinions, and advice we receive from shareholders to top executives and the board of directors.

Insider information is centrally registered in the database and managed by the Corporate Planning Department in accordance with the Insider Information Management Rules. The person in charge of IR can access the database to check the insider information that is registered in the database prior to having a dialogue with shareholders. This way we can maintain a mechanism that prevents insider information from unintentionally being leaked. Prior to announcing our financial results, we also observe a quiet period during which dialogue with investors is restricted.

In addition to holding periodical meetings for analysts and institutional investors that are attended by the president and relevant directors, we agree to individual meetings and phone interviews with institutional investors, etc. as much as reasonably possible. When answering questions from individual investors, we try to provide detailed yet simple explanations.

Initiatives for Shareholders' Meetings

We make an effort to send notices about general shareholders' meeting as early as possible and post them on our website prior to sending them out so shareholders have ample time to review resolutions to be proposed at the shareholders' meeting. In 2003 we adopted online voting in order to make it easier for shareholders to exercise their voting rights. Since 2007 we have been participating in the Electronic Voting Platform. On top of that, we prepare a summarized version of shareholders' meeting notices in English and post it on our global website all with an eye to giving institutional investors around the world extra time to review proposed resolutions and improving the voting process.

During shareholders' meetings, we use narrations and video images when explaining our business reports and financial statements in order to facilitate the understanding of the shareholders attending the meeting. When we have issues that need to be addressed, the president attends the meeting and provides explanations to the shareholders. We also host factory tours and other events following the meeting.