ニュースリリース

March 16, 2000

Establishment of "Curiocity Corp."

Mitsui & Co., Ltd. (Shigeji Ueshima, president), Senshukai Co., Ltd. (Takashi Miyaji, president), Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd. (Susumu Miyamoto,president), The Sakura Bank, Ltd. (Akishige Okada, president) and MVC Corporation, (Hitoshi Suga, president) have established Curiocity Corp, an e-commerce company.

The new company aims at becoming the Japanese strongest "B to C" Shopping Portal Site Company by joining forces of both accumulated knowhow/assets of "Curiocity", a huge virtual city project, and resources of respective companies on this venture company.
Further, the company will introduce a stock option incentive plan thereby managing itself speedily as a venture type enterprise in the IT industry.

1. Background

With the Internet expanding rapidly and with "B to C" e-commerce being expected to grow/accelerate sharply, many venture companies have been born recently in Japan. It is expected that "E Christmas" will come in Japan this year at last, about two years behind the United States, and that Internet mail-order business will start in full swing.
On the other hand, large companies, which have been overwhelmed by new-born ventures in Internet business, positively start joining in the market, using their business performance, credibility, relations and resources in the existing industries.
Especially, such movements are supposed to be accelerated this year, which could be called "Counter-attack by large companies in Internet business".

2. What is "Curiocity"

Mitsui & Co. Ltd. started "Curiocity", a huge virtual city project which combined CD-ROM and the Internet to establish "a place for e-commerce" in 1995, when infrastructure of Internet was still at a primitive stage in Japan, and it has promoted the e-commerce project experimentally.
In 1997, Mitsui & Co., Ltd. started free Web mail service for the first time in Japan by concentrating creativity for contents, planning and designing ability accumulated over several years on the Internet, providing various entertainment contents of games/music through the Internet and broadly marketing the brand as well as acquiring customers for the WebSite, thereby constructing a shopping mall.
As a result of such efforts, the "Curiocity" has become one of the leading home page in the access number in Japan, and the number of stores opened in this shopping mall has reached nearly 800 owning to its customer gathering power and Mitsui & Co.'s solid customer base.

3. The Partners' Expertise and Strategic Aims

Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
-	Provide brand, knowhow, etc. of "Curiocity"project and lead to manage this company so as to construct Japan's No.1 shopping portal site
Senshukai Co. Ltd.
-	Provide knowhow of merchandising by utilizing knowhow of its catalog mail order services and strong retail businesses.
-	Offer services to consumers by opening its stores or its customers' stores inside Curiocity Corp., etc.
Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd.
-	Provide knowhow of Web development consultation, Web design, Maintenance of Web server and security etc.
The Sakura Bank, Limited
-	Possess the best competence in retail banking business among major Japanese city banks. Sakura have been developing its business strategically focusing on Internet business area and will establish Japan's first Internet/online specialized bank, "Japan Net Bank" - tentative name (Mitsui & Co. Ltd. is to be one of the shareholders).
-	Aim to provide its unique and strong electronic settlement function in the shopping mall by cooperating strategically with Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
-	Provide its leading corporate customers with idea of opening retail stores in this shopping mall as a part of e-commerce solutions.
MVC Corporation (*)
-	Provide knowhow of IPO based on a new business model and venture business management.
	(*) Investment promoting type venture capital established by 11 Mitsui group companies including Mitsui & Co., Ltd. and the Sakura Bank Ltd. in 1996.

4. Summary of the New Company

Name	Curiocity Corp.
Establishment	March, 10, 2000
Location	Shinjuku-ku Tokyo, Japan
Capital	Yen 490 million
Shareholders	Mitsui & Co., Ltd. 82.5% (Yen 404.25million) Senshukai Co., Ltd. 5.0% (Yen24.50million) Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd. 5.0% (Yen 24.50million) The Sakura Bank Ltd. 4.5% (Yen 22.05million) MVC Corporation 3.0% (Yen 14.70million)