9-5-07: Marubeni Acquires Canadian Trailer Rental and Leasing Company, Train Trailer Rentals, Ltd.

1-29-07: Marubeni Acquires Canadian Industrial Conveyor Belt Distributor, Belterra Corporation

Marubeni America Corporation (‘’MAC’’) and Marubeni Corporation (“MC”) announced that they jointly acquired 100% equity ownership of Belterra Corporation (‘’BC’’), one of the largest industrial conveyor belt distributors in Canada.

BC has a total of twelve branches in Canada, including its headquarters in Delta, British Columbia.  BC distributes industrial rubber conveyor belts, steel cord belt, and other related rubber materials, serving various industrial sectors from the branch offices.  BC enjoys one of the largest sales networks in Canada and maintains top market position in Western Canada.  BC provides 24/7 maintenance service to its customers, including dispatch service to the customers’ own sites.  BC’s customer-oriented maintenance service has earned it a reputation for being the best in the industry.

MC has established the value-chain network for rubber materials.  The network includes upstream, downstream, natural rubber, synthetic rubber, tire, and conveyor-belt distributors.   BC will help promote MC’s global rubber businesses in the future.  This type of value-add has recently been demonstrated by MC’s recent acquisition of an automobile tire distributor in Thailand.

MAC has been selling conveyor belts for more than 20 years, primarily focusing on the distribution network and finance / lease businesses.  MAC anticipates massive population and regional market growth in North America and believes it still offers the largest industrial conveyor belt market, estimated at approximately US$500 million.  North America is expected to grow further, due to the consistent demand from the key industries such as natural resources and energy sectors, as well as the distribution businesses driven by population growth.  With the acquisition of BC, Marubeni hopes to capture a significant portion of this business.

1-22-07: Marubeni Enters the Finance Leasing Industry with the Launch of a New Subsidiary, CoActiv Capital Partners LLC

Marubeni America Corporation (“MAC”) has entered into the finance leasing industry in the United States with the launch of a new subsidiary, CoActiv Capital Partners LLC (“CCP”), retaining the employees and most of the lease assets of Partners Equity Capital Company (“PECC”).

The Marubeni Group has identified the leasing and financial services industry as one of its strategic segments in the new mid-term business plan, “G” PLAN and will expand the leasing business by focusing on vendor finance lease programs to medical equipment and office technology manufacturers, and outsourcing small ticket leasing services to U.S. banks, areas in which PECC is specialized.   In the U.S., the general equipment lease market has new leasing demand of over $50 billion annually.

The former PECC management team, most of which grew the leasing business rapidly as part of the management team at the leasing subsidiary of Tokai Bank in the 90’s, has extensive experience in providing finance programs to Japanese manufacturers in the U.S. and outsourcing services to U.S. banks.  This experience, together with the Marubeni Group’s extensive business network, industry relationships, and financial backing, will enable CCP to expand its leasing assets to about $300 million within two years.

The Marubeni Group has established its operating lease operations such as refrigerated trailer leasing, auto leasing, and freight railcar leasing in the U.S. and will broaden and expand its stable revenue base by diversifying its lease portfolio and stepping its long term lease assets up with the full-sale entry to the vendor finance leasing segment for small ticket equipment.

1-16-07: Marubeni Acquires a Freight Railcar Leasing Company, Midwest Railcar Corporation

Marubeni America Corporation and Marubeni Corporation acquired a 100% stake of an Illinois based freight railcar operating leasing company called MIDWEST RAILCAR CORPORATION (MRC).  MRC is a freight railcar operating leasing company established in 1999 which owns approximately 3,000 freight cars. MRC leases to prominent companies such as major railways, grain, food and mining companies.  In addition to its leasing business, MRC manages railcar assets in a variety of ways such as management of railcar assets owned by other institutions and brokerage of freight railcars.

The US transportation industry is characterizes railways as being a major means of long distance transportation and with the strong US economy, the demand of freight cars is growing very rapidly.  Considering the fact that half of the freight cars operating in the US are under leasing arrangements and that this tendency is to continue in the future, Marubeni has decided to strategically join in this business field.  Marubeni will continue to invest and grow the MRC business quite intensively in a short time in order to double the size of its assets to meet the strong American railway transportation demand.

Marubeni has been known as one of the world's strongest and most experienced company in the railway and transportation related business including supply and construction of railway systems. With the acquisition of MRC, Marubeni is now growing its business further to meet all and every kinds of business demands in the railway and transportation field. The growth will be expanded to other international regions such as Europe and Asia in the near future.

1-16-07: Marubeni Acquires a U.S. Paper Distribution Company, Intragrated Resources Holdings, Inc.

Marubeni America Corporation and its parent, Marubeni Corporation ("Marubeni"), acquired a 100% stake of a Connecticut based paper distribution company called Intragrated Resources Holdings Inc. (“IRH”) on January 11, 2007.  IRH is the parent company of A.T. Clayton and Co. Inc., a large privately owned U.S. paper distributor, and J. S. Eliezer Associates, Inc., the preeminent printing production consultant, both of which serve the catalog, direct mail and magazine industries.

IRH has a unique skill set which is to sell paper through printing consultation, offering customers cost savings and lead-time reduction. They have strong relationships with large end users in the United States and hold a market share of 7% in the coated ground wood market in U.S.

The U.S. paper and paperboard market size is about 100 million tons annually, the largest in the world. Among that, printing and writing paper consumption is still growing at 2% per year while other advanced countries’ markets have matured already. U.S. demand expansion is supported by the growth of general consumer product markets based on the steady increase of population, which is rare in advanced countries.

In the meantime, U.S. paper manufacturers have reduced their capacities leading to increased imports, especially coated ground wood imports which is 1.7 million tons out of the total demand of 6 million. Considering the upcoming capacity growth in Japan, U.S. is one of the strong future export market candidates for Japanese manufacturers. Historically, there has never been a coated ground wood export from Japan to the U.S., however, IRH could be a strong tool for the future opportunity.

Marubeni will be the pioneer among Japanese companies to enter the paper distribution in the growing U.S. market. After the acquisition, Marubeni will further increase the market share and develop stronger presence in pulp and paper industry.

Organizationally, IRH shall be managed within Marubeni America Corporation's Forest Products & General Merchandise Business Unit.  All inquiries regarding IRH should be directed to Mr. Hiroshi Kashima at 212-450-0191.