October 1, 2007

Acquisition of Shares in French Processed Seafood Company Cite Marine

Nippon Suisan Kaisha, Ltd. (“Nissui”; President & CEO: Naoya Kakizoe) has reached an agreement with Cite Marine SAS (“Cite Marine”), a French company which is engaged in the production and sale of frozen and chilled seafood and other foods for the domestic market and has been a business partner of the Nissui Group for many years, to acquire 59% of its shares for an estimated 2.6 billion yen (16.8 million euro) on October 1, 2007. The acquisition of Cite Marine shares will be made by Nissui’s European holding company Nippon Suisan (Europe) B.V. (“Nissui Europe”, headquartered in the Netherlands), in which Nissui will make a capital injection.

Based on the partnership it built with the Sealord Group, Ltd. (headquartered in New Zealand) under the TGL Plan, its medium-term management plan for the period from 2001 to 2005, the Nissui Group integrated the industrial-use white fish sales function of Nissui Europe into J.P. Klausen & Co. A/S (headquartered in Denmark) in 2003, and integrated the same function in Spain and Portugal into Europacifico Alimentos Del Mar SL (headquartered in Spain) in 2004. In 2006, Nissui then acquired Nordic Seafood A/S (headquartered in Denmark) to boost sales in the food service and retail sectors, thus completing the last step in the development of infrastructure for selling marine products across the three sectors (industrial, food service and retail) in the Pan-European market.

Under its new medium-term management plan (The New TGL Plan: from 2006 to 2011) which commenced in FY2006, the Nissui Group aims to replicate its North American operations in Europe by enhancing its function as a “producer” and building an integrated operating structure that creates customer-oriented value from marine resources. The acquisition of shares in Cite Marine is based on the recognition that, with its strong product development capabilities, Cite Marine has the ability to achieve optimal synergy with the Group and serve as a platform for the Group’s marine products and processing businesses in Europe.

Following the acquisition, Nissui will develop new value-added products bringing together the strengths of Cite Marine’s technical expertise and the production technologies of Group companies, and endeavor to achieve sales growth through the Group’s European distribution network as well as Cite Marine.

With the addition of Cite Marine to the Nissui Group, Nissui expects Group sales in Europe to reach 50 billion yen (312 million euro)*, including the combined sales of seafood distributors Nordic Seafood A/S and Europacifico Alimentos del Mar, S.L.
*Sales on a Global Links basis (including companies accounted for under the equity method).