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| April 24, 2001 |
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| Restructuring of Recording Media Business of
Mitsubishi Chemical, Mitsubishi Chemical Media, and Verbatim Group |
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Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation
Mitsubishi Chemical Media Co., Ltd.
Verbatim Corporation |
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Mitsubishi Chemical Media Co., Ltd. (MKM), and Verbatim Corporation, both subsidiaries
of Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC), have announced a restructuring of their
Recording Media business effective May 1, 2001 to address needs for business flexibility
in the worldwide marketplace.
The restructuring will involve the establishment of a worldwide headquarters for
the Recording Media Business in MKM in Japan. MKM will remain responsible for
sales in Japan while Verbatim will manage sales throughout the rest of the world.
The single worldwide headquarters, however, will establish global business strategies,
coordinating activities between the companies to more quickly respond to regional
needs throughout the world. Company officials also said that this restructure
would bring about increased efficiency through the establishment of global corporate
functions and combining purchasing, traffic, and other common activities into
one business unit. MCC will perform research and product development activities
for the new group, and products sold by the group will be purchased from the MCC
Group and other independent manufacturing companies. This will allow the group
to establish various product supply chains throughout the world and thus respond
more quickly to regional customer needs.
Worldwide, the new group will have the total sales of about $450 million (expected
for fiscal 2001) and about 300 employees. Each component of the groups major product
line(MO, CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, and FD) commands a highly respectable first,second
or third worldwide market share position.
Mr. Yoshimitsu Kobayashi, general manager of MCC's Information Storage Products
Department and president of MKM, will be chief executive officer of the group
with Mr. Shigeru Tsuyuki, President of Verbatim Corporation, managing business
in the U.S., Mr. Jurgen Fritz, President of Verbatim Limited, overseeing the European
business, and Mr. Takao Okugawa, Managing director of MKM, as the head of the
business in Japan and other Asian countries.
The new group intends to reach sales of about $800 million in three years by creating
new products and services utilizing the added advanced research abilities of the
Mitsubishi Chemical Group and by aggressively developing all prospective markets
with rapid growth potential.
| For further information, please contact |
| Public Relations Department, MCC (JPN) |
| Tel: [+81] 3-3283-6254 |
| Administration Department, MKM (JPN) |
| Tel: [+81] 3-5484-3972 |
| Verbatim(USA) |
| Tel: [+1] 704-547-6719 |
| Verbatim Limited (UK) |
| Tel: [+44] 1784-439-781 |
| Verbatim Australia Pty Limited (AUS) |
| Tel: [+61] 3-9823-0906 |
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