Changes in Board Membership - NSG Group

Changes in Board membership

George Olcott has served as an External Director of the NSG Board since June 2008. As Mr. Olcott has completed the full six-year term for External Directors, as stipulated in our internal rules, he will be retiring. The NSG Board has nominated Günter Zorn as his successor.

Mr. Zorn is a German executive with vast international experience, who has lived and worked in Japan for more than 20 years. Mr. Zorn began working in Japan in 1991 as the President of the Japanese subsidiary of Linotype-Hell AG, which was established through a merger of Linotype and Hell. In 1997, Heidelberg Druckmaschinen AG and Linotype-Hell AG merged and Mr. Zorn was appointed President of Heidelberg Asia Pacific in 2000, managing the company to profitable growth.

In 2005, he moved to Deutsche Post-DHL as President of DHL Japan Inc. and became EVP North Pacific covering Japan & Korea in 2006. From 2006-2010 Mr. Zorn was the President of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan. In 2009, Mr. Zorn founded his own management consulting company, Z-Anshin K.K.

Günter Zorn

2. Future arrangements

The proposed appointments mentioned above will be formally decided at the 148th Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders, which will be held in late June 2014. As a result of these changes, the Board composition remains unchanged, consisting of eight Directors, four of which are External Directors.

The current External Directors are registered with the Tokyo Stock Exchange (hereinafter “TSE”) as Independent Directors. In addition to such criteria set by the TSE, the Company has more stringent criteria in respect to the independence of Directors, considering their relationships with the NSG Group itself, its directors, officers and/or major shareholders. All four current External Directors and Mr. Zorn meet both the TSE and NSG independence requirements.