Designing
New Context

Designing
New Context

Participation in a Share Purchase Program through Public Tender Offering by Kakaku.com, Inc.

2014.11.19

Digital Garage, Inc. (TSE JASDAQ: 4819, Head Office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan; President and Group CEO: Kaoru Hayashi; henceforth “DG”) has decided to participate in a share purchase program through public tender offering by Kakaku.com, Inc. (Head Office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan, President: Minoru Tanaka, henceforth, “Kakaku.com”), a DG’s equity method affiliate which operates 「Kakaku.com」, a purchase support service website, and「Tabelog」, a restaurant review website.

DG has strived to develop DG group’s businesses by placing Kakaku.com as a core company of DG group since it acquired Kakaku’s shares in 2002 to drive incubation business. DG is further reinforcing business alignment with its group companies including services recently launched such as Big Data business utilizing data from 「Kakaku.com」and 「Tabelog Pay」, payment service for restaurants in conjunction with DG group’s Payment business.

Agreeing with Kakaku.com’s objectives of returning profits to shareholders with improved capital efficiency, DG has decided to participate in a share purchase program for 2 million shares (0.89 % of the total outstanding shares) of Kakaku.com, which is part of shares DG owns. Our policy is that DG will continue to hold the remaining 44,688,000 shares (19.97% of the total outstanding shares, 20.44% on voting rights basis *) DG does not tender in the program. Kakaku.com will remain as an equity method affiliate for DG. DG strives to further enhance corporate value of the DG group including Kakaku.com.

* In the scenario that Kakaku.com acquires 2.5 million treasury stocks of which 2 million shares from DG