New Petroleum Products Sales Information Company Established

Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. (NRI: Tokyo; Akihisa Fujinuma, President, CEO&COO) will establish on July 1 a new company specializing in the provision of information for the petroleum product sales industry, which will introduce new types of services that respond to changes in the industry's business conditions. The new company, wholly owned by NRI and capitalized at ¥350 million, will be called NRI Garden Network, Ltd.

Since 1969, NRI has provided information services to approximately 4,000 service stations and sales outlets through our Oil Distribution System Business Department, with the aim of supporting and reforming the businesses of distributors and sales outlets. This department has mainly focused on the service station (SS) business accounting system and has provided various data exchanges and credit authorization services.

With the drastic changes in the recent petroleum product sales business environment, however, the industry will need to meet the challenges of new outlet styles and business reforms. Against this background, the new company will work for an enhancement of customer services and the realization of more efficient outlet operations.

In order to appropriately respond to the management needs of the petroleum distribution industry during this period of reform, NRI Garden Network, Ltd. will focus on the provision of information, which is a further step in the enhancement of the NRI Group's service solutions business. Moreover, the new company intends to develop new solutions and services utilizing expertise accumulated in the NRI Group. A sales target of ¥3 billion has been set to be achieved by the third year of operations.