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December 2011

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Marubeni Tokyo, Japan Report Facts Company name: MARUBENI Corporation Fiscal year end: March 31, 2011 Report title: Becoming a Stronger Marubeni President and CEO: Teruo Asada Number of books: 2 Report length: 206 pages (AR) + 46 pages (CSR) Auditors: Ernst & Young ShinNihon LLC Design and production: N/A E-mail: TOKB191@marubenicorp.com	Report Rating 3.5/5 (Rating scale below) Profile-Mission The sogoshosa or general trading company is a business model unique to Japan. In striving to further enhance its presence in a host of business fields, Marubeni has driven the evolution… The group’s divisions are: Energy, Metals & Mineral Resources, Transportation Machinery, Power Projects, Industrial Machinery, Forest Products, Chemicals, Food, Lifestyle, Real Estate, Finance, Logistics & IT. (Report excerpts. Italics are own company’s words) Key Figures Revenues: Yen 3,514,937 million Gross trading profit: Yen 522,152 million Net income: Yen 136,541 million Earnings per share: Yen 78.63 Cash dividends: Yen 12.00 Return on equity: 18.0% Return on assets: 3.0% Debt to equity ratio: 1.9 (times) (Source: figures sourced from the annual report) Peers & Rivals MITSUBISHI MITSUI ITOCHU SUMITOMO ASAHI KASEI And other competitors at division levels

Triple A > Annual report made of two sections, the Spirit one and the Fact one. The usual CEO message is here replaced by a one-on-one discussion between the CEO and a business school professor: straightforward, strategically driven -despite the complex sogo shosa structure, strategy is made quite clear-, reader-friendly and nicely portrayed. > Special features about three business developments -grain, copper and water- are rich in content, well illustrated and mapped.

Double A > Five-year Financial Highlights, with charts and comments. > Good overview and informative review of all divisions, featuring Sources of Strength for each. > Progress on targets is checked and next-year goals are set.

Simple A > Financial information lies in, but financial commentary could be more elaborate and accessible. > Like in other Japanese groups, governance reporting has improved, but is still lagging behind on board details, procedures, committees, and remuneration matters. > With its CSR Activity Map cutaway, a business model for delivering water to meet countries’ needs, and a number of activity reports, the separate CSR Report does a fairly good job. But the structure is not optimized and targets are vague.

B Sides > It takes almost 60 pages to get an overview of the 12 divisions. > Few share indicators and little investor information. > Notes to statements (about 40% of the pages) are 10-K looking, poorly laid out and not easy to go through. > Risk factors and management not up to requirements, especially for such a conglomerate.

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Selected Pages (Contents & P 9 of Marubeni Annual Report 2011)	Rating Scale 5 First-Rate 4.5 Excellent 4 Very good 3.5 Sound 3 Average 2.5 Uneven 2 Common 1.5 Substandard 1 Poor 0.5 Uncompetitive The rating is based on ReportWatch internal desk research and does not take into account the independent Rating Panel’s judgment.