OREANDA-NEWS. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (President & CEO: Takeshi Kunibe; hereinafter “SMBC”), Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Co., Ltd. (President & CEO: Kunio Yokoyama; hereinafter “SMAM”) and Development Bank of Japan Inc. (President & CEO: Toru Hashimoto; hereinafter “DBJ”) have established UDS Clean Energy 2014 Investment Limited Partnership (hereinafter the “LPS”), and have enter into an agreement with Sumitomo Corporation (President & CEO: Kuniharu Nakamura; hereinafter “Sumitomo”) to purchase a majority of share in Solar Power Kitakyushu Corporation, a Sumitomo’s subsidiary of solar power generation, through the LPS. The LPS has a plan to, after each commencement of commercial operation, purchase shares in other solar power companies located in Japan from Sumitomo.

 “Japan Revitalization Strategy” of the Japanese Government says energetic and environmental constraints must be overcome in order to strengthen the industrial foundation and to enhance the international competitiveness of Japan. In the businesses related to infrastructures such as power plants, the players have to generally hold the assets for the long-term, while some have the needs to replace the assets, which make it possible to continuously develop new projects and improve in profitability on assets. The LPS is intended to satisfy such needs.

 SMBC and SMAM will, by a diversity of finance combined the function of funding such as “project finance” with the know-how to manage funds, respond to customer’s needs to replace assets and contribute to development of infrastructure such as energy.

DBJ will focus on activating funds flow by promoting a finance to enable sharing risk through cofinancing and coinvestment in collaboration with general financial institutions, firms and other entities as well as contribute to development of infrastructure such as energy by responding to customer’s needs to replace assets.

Sumitomo is developing, building and operating renewable energy power plants both in Japan and across the world, of which the net generation capacity has reached 1,100MW. Although Sumitomo will continuously focus on developing superior infrastructure projects such as power plants including renewable energy, the finite management resources must be utilized effectively in order to ensure the stable and continuous growth in the medium- to the long-term. As part of such strategy, this transaction is intended to enhance the quality and profitability of business portfolio. Sumitomo will, with strategically replacing the portfolio, expand and develop the business foundation in the environment and infrastructure field.