Promotion of Collaboration by NTT and ZENRIN Co., Ltd. Based on a Capital and Business Tie-up

Today, NTT Corporation (headquartered in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo; Jun Sawada, President & CEO; hereinafter referred to as "NTT") and ZENRIN CO., LTD. (headquartered in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture; Zenshi Takayama, President & CEO; hereinafter referred to as "ZENRIN") agreed to form a capital and business tie-up. On the basis of this tie-up, the two companies are going to strive for the advancement of digital map in preparation for the arrival of the IoT/AI age, by fusing their respective strengths and promoting collaboration.

1. Background

NTT has undertaken the research and development of "4D digital platform™", which integrates various sensing data such as humans, things and environments in real time into high-precision spatial information, enabling fusion with various industries' platforms and the construction of future predictions. As presented in Your Value Partner 2025, our medium-term management plan, we are aiming for contribution to the achievement of a smart society = smart world.
As announced in ZENRIN GROWTH PLAN 2025, its medium- and long-term management plan, ZENRIN has posted "Optimization of 'quantity and quality' in networked society" as its basic policy. It aspires to the creation of new values by optimizing the 'quantity and quality' of location information that the ZENRIN Group has and publicly available information, and by making effective use of the same in modern society characterized by complex connections of activities, goods, and people.

NTT has a solid customer base inside and outside Japan, and is in possession of a globally recognized brand, human resource power, and research and development capabilities that are among the best in the world. As a leading company in the map-making field, ZENRIN possesses good capabilities for the collection and management of map information, and has a wealth of know-how related to the production of maps. The two companies pursued mutual discussions on the possibility of collaboration toward the building of a smart world. As a result, they arrived at the shared view that the formation of a capital and business tie-up and promotion of collaboration fusing their respective strengths would enhance the corporate value of each company.

^*Start of action aimed at practical utilization of its functions in a sequential manner beginning in FY2021 at NTT
https://group.ntt/en/newsrelease/2020/03/26/200326c.html

2. Outline of the capital and business tie-up

NTT and ZENRIN will endeavor to expand the business of both companies in the fields of infrastructure management, MaaS / autonomous vehicles, and smart cities, as well as contribute to the 4D digital platform™ envisioned by NTT. They intend to jointly and efficiently construct Advanced Geospatial Information Database, which will have a high precision and an abundance of semantic information, beginning in FY2020. This is to be done by drawing on the know-how of the NTT Group in high-accuracy positioning and mapping technology, and infrastructural maintenance and management, and that of ZENRIN in the production of maps incorporating all sorts of collected information.
The two companies are going to take action to resolve various social problems and create value in new business fields through effective use of the results based on this tie-up. In the belief that the construction of a firm partnership into the future is vital to these ends, NTT is planning to acquire 4,200,000 shares of ZENRIN™s common stock (7.32 percent of the outstanding shares) by underwriting this third-party allocation.

3. Outline of the concerned companies

(1) Outline of NTT

(2) Outline of ZENRIN Co., Ltd.

4. Schedule