Houlihan Lokey Advises Nojima Corp.

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Nojima Corp. (Nojima) has acquired CONEXIO Corp. (CONEXIO), a subsidiary company of ITOCHU Corp. (ITOCHU), by tender offer for ¥85.5 billion ($650 million). Houlihan Lokey acted as the sole financial advisor to Nojima.

Nojima (TYO:7419) is one of the largest retailers in the Japanese household appliance industry, with sales of approximately $4 billion and more than 10,000 employees in 2022. Originally founded in 1959, it operates more than 250 appliance stores as well as 400 mobile carrier stores nationwide. It acquired ITX Corp., Japan’s fifth-largest retailer of mobile phones in 2014, which made it the second-largest retailer of mobile devices by volume in Japan.

CONEXIO (TYO:9422), originally founded as a wholly owned subsidiary of ITOCHU in 1997, went public in 2006, and became Japan’s third-largest retailer of mobile phones, with sales of approximately $1.4 billion and 440 mobile carrier stores nationwide.

ITOCHU (TYO:8001), founded in 1858, is one of the largest conglomerate trading companies in the world, with a net profit of approximately $6 billion and more than 4,200 employees.

The acquisition of CONEXIO will contribute to securing Nojima’s solid position in the mobile phone retail space while allowing ITOCHU to carve out its non-strategic business and post substantial capital gains by its fiscal year-end after it divests the 60.34% shares in CONEXIO it continued to own.

This is the largest transaction in the Japanese mobile phone sector since 2005, demonstrating Houlihan Lokey’s distinguished sector expertise and knowledge. This also marks the 13th public transaction advised by our Japan team since 2020, validating the firm’s execution excellence and extensive experience in public transactions.