We hereby announce that the deadline regarding the system of transition to professional investors as per the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act is as follows.

• Under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, which came into effect on September 30, 2007, customers are classified into "Professional Investors" and "Customers Other than Professional Investors" (hereinafter "General Investors") according to the "Kind of Contract" as defined in Article 53 of the Cabinet Office Order on Financial Instruments Business, etc.
• Under the Professional Investor system, if a customer falls under the category of Professional Investor, some of the conduct regulations imposed on us as a financial instruments firm, such as the obligation to deliver documents prior to the conclusion of a contract, are exempted from the request.
• In cases where a customer is permitted under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law to change its status from a Professional Investor to a General Investor or from a General Investor to a Professional Investor, and where the Company accepts the customer's request after the prescribed procedures, the transfer between Professional Investor and General Investor is permitted for each Kind of Contract as defined in Article 53 of the Cabinet Office Order on Financial Instruments Business, etc. Please note that the Company reserves the right to decline requests of a change of status from General Investor to Professional Investor as a result of our screening process.
• In principle, the period of validity for transferring from a General Investor to a Professional Investor is one year, but we shall set the deadline as the first December 31st (including those which are not Company business days) that falls after the day on which the customer transfers to become a Professional Investor.
• For those customers transferring from a General Investor to a Professional Investor, they will revert to General Investors on the day after the end date. If said customers wish to remain a Professional Investor after the deadline, these customers must submit a new request (automatic renewal is not possible). The Company will inform eligible customers prior to the deadline.

Note that this document is not intended to solicit customers who have transitioned to Professional Investor to maintain their transition to Professional Investor.