The Metal+(Plus) Division was launched in April 2024 with the mission of leading a materials innovation and functional transformation in the metals field by demonstrating a bold "Plus" that breaks through the status quo.

The Metals Division, the origin of this division, had been proposing optimal products and logistics solutions to meet the mutual needs of users and suppliers by viewing steel products and non-ferrous metals not simply as materials, but as products with their own unique characteristics and functions.

Under the two new SBUs^*—"Mobility Materials Solutions" and "Metal Solutions"—the division will further refine its functions while honoring its history and relationships with business partners who have supported the division, and will carry out prompt and specialized activities to meet a wide range of customer needs across industries and product sectors, while addressing increasingly complex social issues.

The biggest social issue the division sees beyond its own perspective is the realization of a carbon-neutral society.Specifically, we will create business value that will enable the entire supply chain of metal materials to become carbon neutral by combining functions, technologies, and markets, based on our procurement capabilities that leverage our overseas network cultivated over many years and our diverse processing and logistics capabilities in Japan and overseas.

In addition, we will take on the challenge of creating businesses in an integrated virgin/recycled material utilization framework, which is one of our strengths, in collaboration with the newly established Circular Economy Division, and strengthen our unique functions.

While expanding the scope of these efforts, we will expand our market position from midstream to downstream/upstream, and create and expand the green steel business as a trading company that can contribute to a carbon-neutral society from the material aspect.

In addition, we are accelerating human capital management as a division in tandem with our business strategy, investing in human resources to foster each employee's "individuality" and developing our organization based on DE&I. While emphasizing the job satisfaction (comfort and satisfaction) of each and every employee, we are promoting flexible appointment of human resources by accepting diverse ideas, thereby enhancing the well-being of employees working in this division, and carrying out branding activities focusing on their successes.

Through these wide-ranging initiatives, we aim to achieve our medium- and long-term goals by establishing a business structure that enables us to both deepen existing businesses and create new businesses that emerge from them, and to aim for the next new stage.