OREANDA-NEWS. Fast Retailing Co., Ltd.'s English-language Annual Report 2014 has won the Best of Japan Grand Award for the first time at the International ARC Awards 2015, the world's biggest annual report competition held in the United States. Fast Retailing was nominated for and then won the coveted Best of Japan Grand Award after receiving two Gold Awards for Chairman's Letter and Interior Design.

The ARC offers Gold, Silver, Bronze and Honors awards across a range of annual report categories, including Overall Excellence, Cover Design, Chairman's Letter and Interior Design. The reports are evaluated on a specific set of factors, including how succinct and crisp the overall corporate message is, the persuasiveness of the text, the clarity and readability of financial data, the originality of the cover and interior design, and the level of cohesion and consistency of the whole report. Judging is extremely strict, with any report that fails to achieve the required minimum score labeled as "non-applicable". Winning a Gold Award is even more challenging, and requires the winning candidate to earn over 90 out of a possible 100 points for all the categories. Only 5% of prize-winning reports ever achieve that score.

The International ARC Awards contest is an annual report competition held by MerComm, Inc., an independent awards organization located in the United States. The organization is free from the influence of specific industries, advertisers, or sponsors, with reviews and evaluations carried out in a fair manner by judges from a variety of countries and industries. The competition's nearly 200 judges work in such fields as the financial industry, private corporations and production industries. This year marked the 29th year of competition, with 2,065 entries from 35 countries.