On September 25, 2014, Ningbo Development Co., a company jointly established by Hankyu Hanshin Department Stores, Inc. (“H2O”) and Cool Japan Fund (“Cool Japan Fund”), executed a Joint Venture Contract with its Chinese partner, Ningbo Metropolitan Real Estate Development Co., Ltd. (“Ningbo Metropolitan”), for the establishment of Ningbo Hankyu Hanshin Commercial Limited Company (“Ningbo H2O”) to be located in the city of Ningbo, China. Shimin Law Offices acted as the legal counsel of Ningbo Metropolitan during the transaction and provided a series of legal services from the design of the deal structure, drafting of the Master Agreement, Joint Venture Contract and other legal documents to providing assistance in the negotiation process, contributing to the successful execution of the Joint venture Contract between the two parties.

H2O, the world’s leading commercial brands headquartered in Japan, will enter the key and central areas in the newly-developed town in eastern part of Ningbo, a city in Zhejiang Province in China in 2018. It will join efforts with Ningbo Metropolitan to establish a super-sized indoor shopping complex that is expected to have the best demonstration effect in the city of Ningbo. The total investment amount of this project is estimated at around 3 billion RMB and the registered capital is 1.8 billon RMB. Ningbo Development Co., the Japanese party, will own 70% of the equity interest and Ningbo Metropolitan, the Chinese party, will own 30% of the total equity interest. The total commercial construction area will be around 160,000 square meters (with 6 floors aboveground and 1 floor underground) upon completion of the project. The expected time of opening of the shopping complex is autumn, 2018.