SBI Holdings Inc

TSE:8473

Earnings Call Transcript 2018-Q3

[Yoshitaka Kitao, executive]

Thank you very much for joining us today despite your tight schedule and despite this very cold weather. I would also like to extend my hearty gratitude for your continuous support to our group. Thank you so much. Let me explain about SBI Holdings financial results for the 9-month period ended December 31, 2017. We have about 90 minutes. First, consolidated results, which are already on top of this slide, the revenue, JPY 247,125 million or up 27.7%; and pretax profit, JPY 50,623 million or up 51.5% year-on-year; and profit for the period, JPY 41,142 million or up 88.1% year-on-year; profit attributable to owners of the company, JPY 36,465 million or up 45.1%. So significant increase in both revenue and profit. By segment, just quickly, Financial Services Business, for revenue, it achieved JPY 158,437 million or up 20.5%; and the pretax profit 37 -- rather JPY 46,695 million, up 24.9%. Asset Management Business, JPY 86,895 million or up 50%; pretax profit JPY 43,056 million or up 346%. Biotechnology-related Business, some decrease. So pretax profit was minus JPY 31,553 million, which I'm going to give you more details. So this is exactly the page that I'm going to talk about it. So the performance is going to be good for the time being. And as much as possible when it comes to potential future risks, including goodwill, we would like to get rid of them. We would like to review those potential risks in the future. Especially when it comes to biotechnology companies, there are certain difficulties. For example, Kubota Pharmaceutical Holdings or formerly known as Acucela. The other day, based on the clinical trial, the result of the drug discovery, which turned out to be not so bad, but according to our evaluation, Emixustat, in particular, this is mainly for the -- very effective for the retinal problem, but the Stargardt disease, it was -- it is good, but the market there is small. And when it comes to bigger market, it's not bad business, but not as good as we expected. That's what we have found out from our evaluation. So we decided to review the pipeline and about JPY 18.5 billion of impairment loss, Stargardt, diabetic retinopathy was part of the picture. And as I mentioned several times in the past, we are going to IPO it in NASDAQ market in the U.S. And that is about Quark Pharmaceuticals, and post-IPO development plan was reviewed. And some of its intangible assets were reevaluated and resulting in an impairment of JPY 5.7 billion. So the big impairment losses. Without those impairment losses, our bio sector remains more or less unchanged. And as to SBI Savings Bank of South Korea, which was -- had a very bad reputation. It's true that in 2013, we bought a company which was on the verge of bankruptcy, but still we were confident to reverberate the entity and we recovered their business. And now this bank is incurring more than JPY 10 billion of the profit. So JPY 100 billion was the -- goodwill is on the book, and so we believe that this goodwill will not be impaired as long as the current situation continues, and we believe that actually the status of the entity will be even better. So in short, we are reducing those risk assets, and we would like to change the positioning of those other companies -- and the rating rather for the other convertible bonds. For example, it would not be surprising to make that happen. When we look at the share prices, we would like to see convergence as soon as possible, if not in 2 years [indiscernible] the call. We will undertake the admit letter, and through that process, we would like to improve the ratings as much as possible. I think that the current interest rate status is at the bottom. So we need to think about what will happen when the interest rates go up. When it comes to markets, the American market has already factored in the change in the taxation, and the infrastructure investment is yet to be reflected in the market. And also the fiscal disciplines are yet to be handled or addressed. In any case, when the United States fails, then it will certainly give some negative impact on the Japanese market. Therefore, we need to be prepared for every possible scenario. When the Paribas shock prices happened, E*TRADE Korea, we listed that company, and Life that we bought it and also the SBI E*TRADE, which was on the [indiscernible]. We bought it back because they are -- were the cash cows, and we -- I felt that we need to be prepared for different scenarios and then came the financial crisis. So I made a telephone call to Mr. Son when he was moving toward some very risky move and think that it could be very bad news for him. So Son tends to think that the repurchase of his is going to be higher in the price, and maybe, I should not talk so much about the other company. For the sake of time, let's move on.

So this is the total shareholder return ratio of 40% as a minimum. That is our commitment. And with that the 40% will be translated into a considerable amount. This time, we did not do any buybacks, so everything will be on the dividends. So for the 9 months, JPY 36.5 billion and 40% of it is going to be paid out as dividends. So to that point, it is already decided, and whether it is Japan Company Handbook Winter or Nikkei Kaisha Joho PREMIUM, they came up with those numbers, like JPY 50 or JPY 55. It's really misdealing -- misleading for our investors. So we made a change for the fourth quarter, and we will look at the numbers of the quarter -- of the first quarter, and we might change the dividend number, if -- of course, if it's a very good result in the first quarter, we will change it upward. So this JPY 70 could change, and so please understand that this is a minimum level. JPY 70 is the minimum level. And shareholders benefits, there are 6 of them here that everyone is related to ALAplus products. And it amounts to about JPY 54,000, and this is for shareholders for more than 1 year and hold 1,000 or 10 units or more shares as of March 31, 2018. And for those shareholders, these 6 products are offered as benefits. Now business overview of each segment. Starting with securities-related business, both revenue and profit renewed to historical high. The operating revenue, JPY 84,269 million, up 26.6%; and the operating income, JPY 37,708 million, up 37 -- 33.7%; and the ordinary income, JPY 37,736 million or up 33.9%; profit attributable to owners of the company, JPY 26,122 million or up 24.5%.

Online companies. The competition there is already over. It's been over already since 2015. And as you can see on this page, the number of SBI accounts is 4.17 million accounts as of January 29, 2018. So the number is increasing. Number of deposit assets are also increasing steadily. Now looking at number of accounts from June 2011 through December 2017, 9.6% CAGR for SBI and already exceeded Daiwa, and since then, Daiwa has not announced their numbers. The Nomura, it is getting less steeper. It's actually coming down. Nomura's line is coming down with 1.2% CAGR. So it's just a question of time we are going to exceed this other player as well.

But on the stock basis, the 5 major online companies, JPY 25.3 trillion, which is accounting only for 23.6%. So flow is good, but stock wise, we should do better. And our share is also increasing, but it's hard work to increase it. So strategies for the future. First of all, wholesale business or corporate business should be improved. In particular, IPO underwriting business, especially initial public offerings, IPOs, should be our focus. From April 2017 to December 2017, 63 companies were listed during that period, among which SBI underwrote 59 or 93.7% of underwriting shares. So we are dominantly #1. And when it comes to the lead underwriting numbers, with this it's not so big, but yet it is steadily increasing. Among the public companies. So for example, they did it. They did IPO with Nomura, but now they would like to use SBI for changing listing to the first section, for example. In order to be stronger in the corporate business, we need the financial institutional sales department, which is strong. Currently, 151 companies we have as financial institutions customers. And significantly, equity or the investment trust sales or newly issued bond transactions or existing bond transactions or the municipal bonds or public bonds, which is our new business area, we are doing all of them and expanding those businesses. iDeCo and NISA, all the securities firms include them in their strategies. And for individuals, they are most important for the financial reasons. And we are doing very well, both for iDeCo and the NISA. 166,301 accounts as of the end of November and approximately 1.6x larger than that at the end of May 2017, and we waived iDeCo administrative fees from May 19, 2017. And the number of new customers acquired, SBI SECURITIES is ranked #1 in the industry. It's not only the comparison with the securities firms, but also with, for example, Life Insurance, and SBI SECURITIES is #1. And as to the SECURITIES, the investment setting amount, we exceeded JPY 9 billion in December 2017 in terms of investment trust setting amount. Now the NISA's new accounts: SBI, 1,040,000; kabu.com, 150,000; Matsui, 130,000; and Nomura, not announced yet. So as of the end of September, the number is shown here. And Daiwa's number is about 800,000 or so. Furthermore, at SBI SECURITIES, a platform evolution is what we're working on. SBI Prime Securities is -- has been established in August 2017, and we're expecting to receive approval for registration by the end of March 2018, and we're preparing for the commencement of business targeted in April 2018.

So SBI SECURITIES' large-volume customers are going to be provided with prime services, which might eliminate stock brokerage commissions charged to large-volume customers. Sometimes people say it's scary when things are free, but we want to make the customers happy by making things free. Especially, we would like to acquire large-volume customers at a rapid rate through this establishment. Next is the banking-related business. With regards to SBI Sumishin Net Bank, their results are going to be announced soon. At this moment in time, they have not yet announced their results. But on an IFRS basis, their equity in earnings was up by 30.5% year-on-year, reaching JPY 2,949,000,000. And with regards to deposit balance. As of December, last year, it was JPY 4.56 trillion. However, 2018 January 29, it reached JPY 4,646.6 billion, so it grew substantially. With a number of accounts, currently, as of January 29, it stands at 3,121,944, so you could see that number of accounts have been growing substantially as well. Furthermore, with regards to JPY 4.6 trillion worth of deposit assets. When you compare with other regional banks starting off with Yokohama Bank at the top, we are #23. Most of the regional banks have a history of 50 years or 100 years. They've been making efforts to attract their current deposit balance, and they have been attracting regional deposits in a concentrated manner. Compared to that, with regards to our company, we have a nationwide presence in collecting deposits, and over a short period of time, we've been able to reach rank #23. So we are improving highly beneficial customer services in order to expand market share and make our customer base even more diverse. One of the big strategies of banks is housing loans. We are close to JPY 4 trillion at this moment in time. This shows the housing loan volume in total. As of January 29, we are at JPY 3,955.7 billion. So we are growing at an accelerated rate. And for group credit life insurance, this has a positive impact or for fire insurance in our nonlife insurance business, this has a positive impact.

So we have an ecosystem. We are creating mutual evolution and mutual synergies. And since the foundation of our company, I've been building this type of ecosystem, so that this can happen. And this is the results we've been able to generate. Furthermore, related to housing loans, in order to increase housing loans, this is the strategy we have in place. Our company has a partnership with Good Mortgage and MX Mobiling. So they are bank agencies, and through them, we're increasing our housing loan originations. These 2 companies account for 15% approximately of total loan originations. In this way, terminal stations such as Otemachi, Ikebukuro and Shinjuku, the face-to-face shops are operating over weekends on Saturdays and Sundays, and we are improving the convenience for the customers in order to extend our housing loan business. And this is Miraino Card, and we've been starting to accept applications, and we are seeing steady growth. To be honest, and it's not a futuristic card, although we call it the future card, Miraino Card, but it's growing, which is fine. When it's utilized in conjunction with SBI Sumishin Net Bank, benefits are offered such as preferential interest rates and the simplification of application procedures. So overall, you can say, it is a good card on a net basis. However, I still think that we have much more to do, and we need to develop even better card than the one we have in place right now.

And also, amongst our new products, we offer products that you can save money by the time you know it and also enable asset formation, which is effortless. So we are working with emerging companies, venture companies, and with their new technologies, we have been offering new products. And these services uses APIs. So finbee by NestEgg; WealthNavi's Mametasu; and MoneyForward, SiraTama. SiraTama means you'll be able to generate savings by the time you know it unconsciously. So we are working together with these entities. And also by using accounting transaction data, we have started to offer corporate loans. We need to increase this business. We need to have a group-wide partnership strategy that is breakthrough. Soon, you'll probably hear some news. Please look forward to it. Currently, we're working with Lending 1, Payment 2. We are working on this front in many ways. But with regards to business loans, we would like to grow it substantially, we haven't been yet able to do so. But we will be taking steps going forward.

And here, this shows new services with our companies outside of the group. We're working with a company called freee, which is like MoneyForward, and we are doing company establishment simplified procedures to establish a company. For those who are interested in setting up a company, we will be offering necessary services and where we fit in is opening up a corporate bank account. We would like to simplify the process for these founders. That is why we are working together with freee to deliver such services. Next is insurance. With regards to our insurance-related business, we have 5 companies comprising the insurance group. And I have declared that we would like to take them to market. And I will explain this in detail later on, but things are proceeding forward. At a profit basis, up to the third quarter, PBT was JPY 2,311,000,000, up by 64.7%. And the number of contracts increased by 7.6% year-on-year. So we are seeing steady growth. Up until now -- compared to what we've been doing up until now, we believe that we will see better growth due to group credit insurance and fire insurance. We would like to expand this market even more. But with regards to SBI Insurance, there are some negative elements that we need to account for. For example, if vehicles turn into autonomous driving, what's going to happen to the insurance business? Or when it comes to cars, when we see population declining, the number of cars owned are likely to decrease as well or personal life insurance for cars may emerge even more and some people may not be able to compete any longer. And it's going to get hard for those players. So for automobile insurance, we need to pose a question for Rakuten, they are going to enter this category in an old-fashioned way. It seems that they are going to acquire an entity that's engaged in the business, but for nonlife insurance businesses, people are thinking in a different way nowadays. They are thinking about doing something different and have technological advantages. For example, a company in Germany is looking into this category. They have good things to offer. So we would like to research into this area as well. For example, are banks are selling insurance products. According to fiduciary duty, are they doing well in sales? Maybe we could do something to support the promotional sales because our company in Germany is doing some research in this field, and I regard what they have highly and we think that we should implement this. And currently I'm contemplating around whether we should make investments into this entity. But one thing I could say for sure is we offer low cost. So even if cars are going to get increasingly shared in a sharing economy and companies like Toyota even are going to have challenging times. I believe, everybody is going to suffer because it's going to be EV and then hydrogen-powered vehicles, so things are going to rapidly change. So if you get left behind, it's going to be really hard. And the cars in Japan are going to disappear possibly. So what are we going to do in this picture? We need to take away market share from the major players and, possibly, we'll be able to continue our business. So the services I've just mentioned and touched upon is what we would like to work on, and we would like to reduce the premiums as low as possible and create innovation as we continue on with this business. For cancer insurance, fire insurance, we started to sell these products, and we have started to tie up with banks. And CAGR has been 19%. And currently, the number of policies are drawing closer to 1 million because of these efforts.

For SBI Life, by starting group credit life insurance, it has started to change drastically. So as we grow our contracts substantially, we will see more expenses with our policy reserves and it's hard to predict your profits. But we still have been able to generate JPY 400 million on a J-GAAP basis. So this is what we're doing here. But our scale is still small. So we need to continue to acquire new customers. So that's what we're putting emphasis on right now. For small amount short term insurance, we have 3 companies and they are, respectively, growing steadily. Premium income grew by 13% year-over-year. And with regards to actively promoting a diversification of products and sales channels to expand market share, this is what we're doing. Creating group synergies is something we're going to continue to pursue, InsWeb, Sumishin -- SBI Sumishin Net Bank. Fire insurance acquisition ratios are at 70% of the total at this moment on an application basis. So within our group, we have been able to support these new things. So this kind of support mechanism is already in place. So going forward, we would like to work together with regional banks as well as credit unions and implement this service for their housing loans. And 3 companies have already decided to adopt the insurance, and plans are to start sales at any time from February 2018. So we would like to continue to expand this business. Our regional bank strategy. I have this extensive vision and it's a part of it. And it's going to be a positive for the entire group and it's going to be a positive for regional banks, and it's going to be a positive for regional revitalization. I have this conviction, and upon this conviction, I have formulated this strategy. So I believe we can be successful. So with regards to group credit life insurance and the number of applications on an estimated ANP basis, we are seeing an increase. Regional banks, one has already decided to adopt. And from next fiscal year, we believe several regional banks may adopt and they're currently considering. For pet SSI, we have plans to implement pet insurance, and we have started to run promotions. And also at Nihon SSI, we are working together with Au nonlife insurance, and we have a mutual agency contract concluded. And starting from February 1, 2018, sales will start on respective websites. Next is Asset Management Business. Revenue went up by 60%. Profit before income tax expense was JPY 43. -- JPY 4.31 billion. And for SBI Savings Bank, it was JPY 4.4 billion, became JPY 11 billion. It's a 152% (sic) [ 153% ] increase. Change in fair value and profit/loss on sales of investment securities, JPY 3.4 billion became JPY 32.8 billion. Out of that, the listed is JPY 5 billion, nonlisted is JPY 27.8 billion. Our FinTech plant was established in 2015, and one after another, we have injected money in a very rapid speed. We have injected money into it and it is almost completed. We injected money in 68 companies, I believe. We did in early stage, and they had a second financing, third financing. And each time, their values, all of them, has increased. And that too, they did increase by large. Therefore, in that sense, very appreciative of this situation. Having said that, though, I really appreciate, but I just can't keep saying that because in my mind, it is actually becoming a major concern in my mind. The reason being is that we have about 10% of Ripple. If they IPO-ed and if they make that announcement, I just wonder what the value is going to be for that. Ripple is a company, therefore, the value of the company and the XRP market price is different. XRP value, it always changes, JPY 5 trillion. There's JPY 5 trillion also, just multiplying the ones that are in the market and decide on the market price, and they say it's JPY 5 trillion, but the majority of it is in escrow. Therefore, let's say, all of it was put into the market and looking at the market price, then it will go above the bitcoins, by large. What are we going to do about this? And my conclusion is very clear. Go public or do another fundraising. While the possibility is quite slim for that. If such a situation does arise, I myself, have decided to sell or rent. The valuation, and we have to pay tax money, that's quite foolish. Therefore, if the valuation is too large, then the company will go bankrupt. So I just want to sell the moment the announcement of IPO is made. But maybe I had the eyes to see the future, but I made the company Ripple, and that itself will have quite a value in the future. That is a company we hold. We don't have to do anything complicated. We don't have to make a large transaction to just reflect it in the valuation. If we have to do such a thing, then it will be when we want to sell it. So in this way, and for us, it's not just Ripple, in the future, maybe, may become a big hit is what I think is R3 in the same level as Ripple. I will explain about this later, but either way, globally, SBI Holdings as a blockchain investor in a global perspective, SBI's name is well known to my place. I have enormous amount of e-mails that are sent to me from overseas. That is the current situation. 2018 March, full year, we will be making 16 companies public from 14 to 16, and you will see that the related names in a rapid speed will be going public. So in this way -- later on, I will speak about the mid-term plan, but I do not think that Asset Management will increase this rapidly to this level, but in a way, it may exceed the Financial Services Business. That's the feeling I have at this point. FinTech, I believe is that if the market goes down, that will go down and people may think that quite often, but I, myself, think that this part, it's in its peak season and this peak season will continue for a while. These are the measures to expand overseas businesses. SBI Bank LLC is a YAR Bank in Russia, which we hold about slightly less than 50% in Russia. We bought all of that, and we have converted that to SBI Bank. And moving forward, we're going to change all of it. But as license, we can have a unified service provided because we will have all the license in the financial services. And another good thing is that the Japan, Russia economic movements are very different from the past. And we are facing that situation at this time now and at that timing has 100% control of the bank is what we have now. And everything is all cleaned up. Therefore, it will become a very good bank. And also the online services, we are going to thoroughly implement that within Russia, and on one hand, the Japanese corporations that will be entering the Russian market will go to the Four Islands. There will be some Japanese companies that will enter those markets, so we would like to serve them. And also Jakarta, they are about [indiscernible] million of population. So we do need a solid standing of a bank, and so we have opened our representative office. So we will steadily expand our financial business. And also in Sri Lanka in a joint venture with Sunshine Holdings, we will provide advisory services to Japanese companies that will be entering the Sri Lankan market. And also, Corporate Venture Capital, CVC, we have been focusing on this for a while. And together with House Foods, we have created the House Foods Group Innovation Fund. Last time, we did JPY 25 billion, and this fiscal year, in addition to House Foods, we have JPY 10 billion. So in total, it's a JPY 45 billion of CVC. In total of last fiscal year and this fiscal year, we haven't made much of an announcement on it -- about that situation. And also South Korea, as mentioned, under the K-GAAP in 2013, before the acquisition timing, that included, they have achieved historical high net income. And 0.4% -- excuse me, 40% is all performing loans. So overall, it has become a sound situation. In 2013 September, 56.1% was the delinquency or nonperforming loans. So when we think about from that situation, making a bank to become a good bank isn't easy job for us. And we were able to acquire a very talented person, [indiscernible]came from Tokyo Bank and went to Tokyo Mitsubishi, and we have brought him in as a Chairman. He used to be the Senior Executive Managing Director of the bank, but now he is a Chairman and now he is assigned in Russia. Morningstar. Ordinary income in 9 consecutive fiscal years. They have been achieving the results, exceeding the previous year, and they are having quite of a solid management. And as for the management itself, I would like to acquire European company or Singaporean company or Hong Kong. I would like to acquire an asset management type of institution. I would like to focus on the asset management and have the partners -- the regional banks as our partners and bring in money. And that's the management structure that I'm thinking of. And this will be the fiscal year 2018's major project of mine together with Mr. Asakura, I would like to proceed on this. Regarding the Biotechnology-related businesses. As mentioned before, if we exclude the impairment loss, it is a so-so situation. And ALApromo made profit and photonamic has increased their profitability. In biotech, they outlicensed their technology last fiscal year and that part does not exist at this fiscal year. And Quark also has 2 clinical trials in Phase II. Therefore, they require quite an amount of money towards their clinical trials. However, that is getting close to completion, therefore, overall, it is getting towards its end. As mentioned before, the pipeline impairment loss is JPY 24.2 billion, Quark JPY 5.7 billion, Kubota Pharmaceuticals Holdings JPY 18.5 billion. And I don't want you to misunderstand, we do not sell the shares of Kubota Pharmaceutical Holdings. We drop the valuation and decrease the risk assets. Therefore, so please don't misunderstand. SBI Biotech. We have outlicensing of technologic -- 3 of them. And SBI-9674, it's licensed to Kyowa Hakko Kirin for autoimmune disease. We are researching the areas that are quite of a focus at this time. Are we going to suppress the immune system and suppress the cancer or are we going to suppress the immune system to suppress the autoimmune disease? That is at the cutting-edge field with Mr. [ Arai ] from University of Tokyo. And we are actually planting the seeds of this focus area, and we are conducting daily research. And regarding Quark, Novartis, it's a world-renowned pharmaceutical company, is JPY 670 million in total for the outlicensing. And we have these 2, GDF (sic) [ DGF ] and AKI, the milestone payment we'll be receiving will be that much if they succeed. And for GDF (sic) [ DGF ], the clinical trials are towards the end, and new Phase II primary endpoint and the secondary endpoint, both of them have come out with a very good result. Therefore, they will -- it is for sure that it is going to move on to Phase III. AKI is the acute kidney injury, and there is no drug that can cure that. 20% that are hospitalized, whether it's cancer, due to cancer or whatever, but the very end, in many cases, the patients lose their lives due to acute kidney injury. They have the water accumulated in their chest area and they lose their lives or have this acute kidney injury. Those cases occur. So if there is a drug that can cure such things, it will be a breakthrough. And Biocon Limited of India, they are getting close to the end of Phase III. And Pfizer, they have completed Phase IIa and been moving on to IIb -- about to -- right before about to moving IIb, they were able to come up with something really good. And for us, this acute kidney injury, AKI, actually focusing on this only, I think moving forward, is probably the best way to go is what I think. 5-ALA, SBI Pharmaceuticals, the bladder cancer project to Chugai Pharmaceuticals. Last December, we have -- did an outlicense of the technology, and the drug has already launched. And for gastric cancer, completed Phase III and having Osaka University at the center. This is the gastric cancer and metastasizing peritoneal dissemination and when we have the 5-ALA drug in there, it actually emits light and all the surgeon has to do is to remove that area.

And cisplatin nephropathy protection is -- has completed Phase II. And cisplatin is a quite often used cancer drug, anti-cancer drug, but if we use it too much, then there will be a kidney failure that will occur. And mitochondrial disease, they are in the preparation for Phase III is underway, and there is no disease that exists right now to cure that. It's a minor disease, but globally, looking at, there is no drug that will cure this disease. So globally to contribute to people's health, which is my mission, through this, I will be able to achieve that, and by the lack of mitochondrial is causing this disease. Therefore, if you track it to the origin, the Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, it may link to those 2 diseases. And with Oxford University and with University of Birmingham, we have the cardiac ischemia-reperfusion injury. We stop the blood flow once and when it's reopened during surgery, the blood vessels will get clogged and it will cause a problem, but by administrating 5-ALA, it will be able to avoid that and that has been proven through clinical trial and that is going to be focused on humans moving forward. And Dr. Kobayashi in New York, regarding the photodynamic therapy, we believe that 5-ALA can be used to do that, and at Munich University for brain tumors, we are testing it for the patients who have brain tumors, which is a solid tumor, which is about 3 centimeters. They drill a hole from the outside and they cast a light and they saw that by using 5-ALA, that related product, that -- the brain tumors have disappeared. With 5-ALA, therapeutic drugs for diabetes and malaria infection, we have a partner Neopharma at UAE. We are going to outlicense the technology, and they're going to work on that, and they are working on this. With Yamagata University, Faculty of Medicine, Professor Nakajima has published the paper on PLOS ONE, which is a famous U.S. scientific journal, that 5-ALA deficiency causes impaired glucose tolerance and insulin resistence coincident with an attenuation of mitochondrial function in aged mice. Impaired glucose tolerance and insulin resistance, IR, it's caused by the 5-ALA deficiency. And this trial has proved that by enhancing the 5-ALA that this can be cured. And this can further clear the mechanism of 5-ALA. We have Tou Down, which is a product that has a function claim, but we can further dig deeply on this. And we also have established a worldwide sales network of 5-ALA-based intraoperative diagnostic agent for cancer. In The United States, we have received FDA in June 2017, and in the U.S., there are plans to start selling it next fiscal year, and we can do it one after another, one after another. But I think that if we can stop the reoccurrence of the disease, I believe that we will be able to lower the medical bills. And so I thought not one by one, but I thought, maybe, we can receive an approval in a blanket manner. So we have 25 countries in the U.S. and Europe, and we want to expand that more into Japan too. SBI Neopharma. This is located in Dubai. It's a joint venture. And from May 2017, in the Middle East, they have launched the sales of 5-ALA-related health foods. We are working on the registration work for over 80 countries around the world to be able to sell the health foods. And we believe that next fiscal year, we'll be able to sell in more than 10 countries worldwide in fiscal year 2018.

And for SBI ALApromo, within the ranking of the foods with functional claims that was conducted in November 2017, we ranked ninth with the ALAplus Tou Down, Sugar Down. And we -- this is based on the regular purchase of the product. Ranked in for 21 consecutive months since March 2016. And number of domestic stores that offer health foods containing 5-ALA are increasing steadily and now become 15,000 stores. Most of the stores are handling our product. And the ALAplus Body Shape is strongly performing, and it has been introduced to over 4,700 stores.

And in addition to that, we have improvement in the exercise capacity for the elderly with Shinshu University, and improvement in the quality of sleep with Hawaii University. So we are working on the more diversified products. If you become -- if you suffer the disease sarcopenia, then your muscles become weaker and weaker. And regarding that, there is a paper by Dr. Itoh and that is a very good paper, so we'd like to work with him too.

Measures to promote further expansion of business performance and improvement in corporate value. First of all, we would like to establish various funds where we invest. If that is within our financial services business, we will use that service. Meaning that, we will provide a method to monetize the service and that is going to be a positive factor to improve our business. And so we're able to create a win-win situation. And here's one example, it's an alliance with WealthNavi to provide robo-adviser services. According to their announcement as of January 24, the deposit asset, customer asset is JPY 60 billion. And about 60% of this JPY 60 billion is from SBI SECURITIES and SBI Sumishin Net Bank, JPY 27.3 billion and JPY 9 billion, respectively. Related other business and other than that, we are using various lines of technology coming from various venture companies and which are expanded into regional banks area, so that our invested companies become more profitable and that would boost our investment value and that would in turn increase our revenue and profit and that is the good cycle. And establish a new fund to focus on investments in AI and production fields that would be wildly utilized in various industrial fields. It's not just about the FinTech, it's not just about the financials. AI and the blockchain can be used for various industries. And here is new initiative, SBI AI & Blockchain Fund, we started with JPY 20 billion, and we are going to expand commitment to about JPY 50 billion or so. It's not such a difficult thing. The approval from the management committee or the budget, the compiling, through those processes, the JPY 50 billion is not difficult to be achieved. And so we started with JPY 20 billion and SBI AI and Blockchain LPS or SBI A and B Fund is a very easy to remember naming. And the market is going to be a huge one. Only in Japan, Fuji Chimera Research, they said that the JPY 2 trillion in 2030 and the blockchain market size is expected to eightfold, reaching JPY 250 billion. I mean, JPY 250 billion. And the IoT area in Japan is expected to expand to JPY 3.2 trillion by 2022. So different people are saying different things, but the common theme is the continuous growth. And in that context, we developed this fund, and we would like to achieve a good cycle, continuous cycle. Already, SBI Group companies are utilizing AI and Blockchain. For example, SBI SECURITIES, they conducted demonstration tests with NEC regarding application of AI to trading screening business of stocks or the KYC operations related to individual number using OCR equipped by AI provided by Double Standard or for SBI FXTRADE, though we jointly developed AI to respond automatically to inquiries, so called chat robo that is developed with Microsoft Japan. And also advanced screening method using AI and also hybrid chat service test introduction. And with NEC, it's against countermeasures -- for countermeasures against unauthorized transfer. And also with Hitachi, we started consideration to create screening services for financial institutions using AI and SBI Savings Bank. In collaboration with the investee company DAYLI Financial Group in Korea, introducing a new screening model, utilizing machine learning, and efforts are already paying off. SBI SECURITIES for the bond processing operations using blockchain collaborating with IBM Japan for the verification of the applicability of blockchain to the financial market infrastructure for bond processing operations. So we are doing lots of things. I think the very important thing is as follows: SBI BITS, SBI Holdings, NEC, the Corda, we started the KYC, know your customer, operations. Anti-money laundering and KYC, these 2 are very related to all kinds of business that we are engaged in, and of course, the other cryptocurrency as well. As to the SBI Regional Bank Value Creation Fund, it's going to be set on January 31, 2018, starting with JPY 10 billion to be increased to JPY 100 billion level. And this is privately placed, the investment trust offers to qualified institutional investors. So it is the private placement fund. And so we invest in the regional banks, you can either make cash investment or in-kind contributions. And every month, we accept additional purchase applications, and we are going to expand it as high as JPY 100 billion level. Some people are worried about such fund to be placed on the consolidated balance sheet. But I would say that it is licensed. When it comes to licensed business, FSA doesn't want them to go under. On top of that, the PBR of the banks is at 0.5, very undervalued. Why that low? Because of negative interest rate. And, of course, that's not the only reason. When it comes to the regional economy, it is faced with declining population and the shrinking economic basis and cannot introduce FinTech technology on their own because they do not have experts in that area. So they are faced with many problems and thus undervalued at 0.5 PBR. So we are going to pick up the good banks, and our fund will buy their equity. And once it is done, probably, I will be awarded myself and Kawashima by the FSA. So relationship with regional financial institutions. We have a long relationship, and we are strengthening it. And this relationship is contributing to increase the value of regional financial institutions. For example, the SBI SECURITIES, we are providing services to 11 regional banks and 7 are coming. So 18 will be in total. And by the March next year, we would like to increase it to 32. This is our financial intermediary services by SBI SECURITIES. So the regional financial institutions are getting very aggressive because they know they need help. They cannot buy fiduciary duty. And SBI Money Plaza, also, business partnerships with the 34 regional financial institutions for investor introductions for the fund business.

SBI Insurance will be -- SBI Insurance Fire Insurance will be handled by 3 regional financial institutions. And the group credit included and some more likely to join. And SBI Ripple Asia, 43 regional financial banks are participating in The Japan Bank Consortium. SBI FinTech Incubation, it's yet to be announced, but the multiple number of financial institutions are likely to put themselves on the board. Other than that, several financial institutions are very aggressively reviewing the possibility. SBI Business Solutions, providing cloud services for 14 regional banks. E-LOAN, in partnership with 48 regional banks, to introduce loan products. Morningstar, providing tablet app Investment Trust INDEX to financial institutions, including 41 regional banks. The cumulative number of units offered is 49,305 units. SBI investment, 28 regional financial institutions invested in the FinTech Fund as to the SBI AI and Blockchain Fund. The Yamaguchi Financial Group and other financial institutions have invested. And there are many other institutions who just want to wait until the end of March to start investments. So JPY 50 billion, that will be easy. Also in overseas, the name of SBI is making its presence much stronger and we are receiving some referrals. Now the foreseeable direction of the establishment of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. So we started the cryptocurrency ecosystem in 2016 and it is growing constantly. And we are going to grow all of these businesses in this ecosystem, and we would like to enjoy synergy with the ordinary business ecosystem. And here is the direction of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. There are 6 of them here listed. First of all, strengthen initiatives to expand the actual demand for cryptocurrency. Remittance or the other trade finance or either settlement -- utilization for remittance or for trade finance or for settlement and payment. And we would like to expand our activities there as announced by the Ripple. And this is an excerpt from the Ripple insight in 2017 in February, National Bank of Abu Dhabi announced the use of Ripple's solution. And in December, the Thai Bank of Ayudhya supports remittance by a major Korean petrochemical company. So lot of announcements happened in 2017. And in 2018, already in January, MoneyGram, SBI Remit is also tying up with MoneyGram. And this MoneyGram, one of the world's largest money transfer companies, announced to use Ripple's solution and Ripple's digital asset XRP. And on January 18, Korean Woori Bank announced a secondary remittance test between Japan and Korea. So very steadily, in all over the world, we are engaging the big financial institutions. Why those big financial institutions like Ripple? Well, because Ripple is very friendly to financial institutions. The financial authorities -- also the Ripple is friendly to financial authorities. So based on that, the remittance system is more rationalized, time-wise and cost-wise. And also, for many people, the remittance cost is reduced, so everyone is happy. The public -- the network involves considerable investment in renewing the systems and you end up paying a tremendous amount of commission for international remittance. And the idea here is to break it down, tear it down to replace it with more reasonable one, which can be -- which can make everyone happy. So Ripple -- SBI Ripple Asia is up and running. And we established the Japan Bank Consortium with 43 regional banks are participating in the total 61 banks and all the mega banks are included in this 61. In addition, we have Norinchukin or Shinkin Chukin, all of these banks are included as well. So huge expectation from all of them. And in this spring, RC Cloud 2.0 established in December last year, that is going to be completed -- it's going to be commercialized rather. The different banks want to use their own products to -- if you want to reduce cost, it would be -- the mega banks would see the considerable amount of cost reduction, and they can reduce manpower and they can reduce costs, but it is different from -- you might be thinking that it's a bit different from the other current cryptocurrency trend, but I have to point out that there is a security issue. It's not so easy to commercialize it. So we are moving forward very carefully. The Ripple's Blockchain technology. Without XRP, without cryptocurrency, you can use ILP, Inter Ledger Protocol. You can reduce the cost by 33% using only ILP. But if you use XRP as well, then it will be 60% reduction. So this is dissemination of remittance using the distributed ledger technology through partnership with overseas companies and this we started. We launched full-scale expansion of remittance solution using DLT and the SBI Remit and Coinplug, it's a investee company of the FinTech Fund established the JV, SBI Cosmoney, which will provide international remittance services between Korea and other countries. On January 3, 2018, registration of small sum money exchange and transfer business was completed. Now we are going to continue remittance revolution.

And also when it comes to DLT, it's not just banks that are going to use it. Other companies that are financial institutions, such as credit card companies can use it as well. So there was announcement of a card consortium in December 2017 and also a securities consortium, an announcement probably was made today in 2018. Daiwa, Nomura are members.

And when it comes to utilization for identity verification or KYC, they want to standardize it. And also, come up with anti-money laundering measures by leveraging DLT. All financial institutions regardless of their format requires this kind of technology. So this is something that is being considered.

And R3's Corda. There are more than 100 consortium members, such as banks, security companies, central banks and regulating authorities. They are all major in size. And there is more than 70 technology partner companies in the R3 consortium. In Japan, other than ourselves, we have 3 mega banks as well as Nomura Holdings and Daiwa Securities that are members. Currently, the SBI Group is the largest outside shareholder of R3 and it's the only Japanese company to have dispatched its executives. In fact, Ripple, we have an executive with them as well, and we're the only Japanese company that has dispatched our executive. So both companies, what they're going to do on a global basis? We're going to be playing an important role in driving the vision together. And we hope we can do so and be part of it. Furthermore, promoting utilization of Corda by SBI Group, providing a training program for domestic financial institutions, we started from November 2017, on behalf of R3 SBI BITS, a system development company has started providing a Corda Training Program.

As an operating system, we would like to collaborate with other participating financial institutions to build the next generation financial partner with Corda. It's not just Ripple for trading finance. The importers, exporters, the intermediary, the banks, these 3 parties need to go through more than 10 steps and due to document exchange, it takes a lot of time for the transaction to materialize. This needs to be more reasonable and rationalized. By using distributed ledger technology, the export documents can be shared with the importers and banks electronically, and we could simplify document formation as well as mailing. And when it comes to exporters, importers, transport operators, insurance companies, port operators and financial institutions, the exchange of documents can be simplified. This is what we would like to do by leveraging DLT. At UBS, for example, they did their own trials. A transaction period that used to take a week was shortened to 1 hour, which was 1/168th of the previous time. This is breakthrough. I mentioned earlier that we have developed S Coin. For S Coin, this is not just something that -- that can be used within our group or the platform itself can be offered to local governments as well as to regional banks, and they could create their own name. It can be called something-something coin or they could name it with their own prefecture. So together with Orb, which is one of our investing companies, we've developed this together. And we need to pursue steadfast security. The biggest bottleneck factor is the security of Wallet. When it comes to KYC-related technologies, it's a matter of how we can incorporate the technology more and perfect the technology. It's all about that. For blockchain, that's not an issue at all. There are DDoS attacks and cyber-attacks that are happening. There are ransom attacks. SBI SECURITIES, if you don't pay with cryptocurrencies, they've been telling us they're going to attack us, ask ransom money, and kabu.com, they've been terrified as well, but we have sufficient security measures. So we don't even listen to them. And we've never been inflicted with damage either. In the case of cryptocurrencies, it's not centralized. It's a global currency. From all parts of the world, you never know where the bad people are going to come from towards them or others. We need to ensure that we have sufficient theft prevention measures in place. What you need to do the most is to protect the Wallet function and reinforce it. So I've looked around the world to find great companies with this technology. If we didn't pursue this, YouBit in Korea, a currency exchange, they were hacked twice, and 17% of their assets were lost and they filed for bankruptcy. And we're seeing ICO attacks as well where the tokens are stolen. In the global market on a monthly basis, there are 100 cyber-attacks per month. And out of the total funding of USD 3.7 billion, about 10% or about USD 400 million is being stolen. There is a group ID report that assessed this. I'm not sure if this is right or wrong. But no matter what, Wallets are vulnerable because we're talking about global currencies. So it's pretty much obvious that people will commence these attacks from around the world, so you need to be prepared sufficiently or else, you will be vulnerable. Coincheck is the company that didn't do any of this, 58 billion was stolen on a Japanese yen basis. So the problem they faced was very basic at Coincheck. They were connected to the Internet and they were storing the NEM coins in the hot wallet. It's nonsense. You're connected to the Internet and they're storing the NEM coins. It's as if you're presenting your currencies to the thieves in an exposed environment. And the NEM Foundation was recommending multi-signature contracts to have that in place, but they didn't conclude one. You know it's very basic and they didn't address any of them. They're saying they're going to reimburse 40-something billions of yen, but I don't think they are capable of doing so. If they were able to reimburse their customers, it means that they were making so much money through this business. It's only several years since they were established. How many years were they since foundation and were they making tons of money? If they were, were they paying their taxes? Were they filing their tax returns? I've never heard them paying massive amounts of taxes. So how in the world are they able to reimburse their customers in the scale of 40-something billions of yen. I think the FSA, the Financial Services Agency, should ensure they go through thorough reviews and screening not just for the system, but for the company's financials as well. They need to confirm and inspect where they are because if they are capable of paying the 40-something billions of yen, I'm sure that the tax regulators will start to step in as well. This is just commonsense. I mean in cash, are they capable of paying that much money? I don't think there are that many companies that are capable of doing so. Of course, if they had a history of 20 years or 30 years and were able to generate considerable amount of profits every year and they have a lot of internal reserves, I would understand. But this is just one simple venture company.

And the biggest thing that they anger me about is that Coincheck was paying so much money to run commercials when they should have invested in their security measures. They were just focused on attracting customers. So for these guys, they are the bottom of the hierarchy. There are rock-bottom and thankfully, I don't invest in them. And it is a group with which I never want to have a relationship with. I've already made that declaration. And for those players who enter the cryptocurrency space, we do a thorough review of the financials when we think about making investment, and we will send an expert from SBI BITS to look at their system as well. That's how far we go. And just because they were pre-existing, allowing them to continue their business is something that shouldn't happen. Even if they were pre-existing, the regulators should ensure that these entities are approved and until they receive approval their business operations should be suspended. And after the inspections, if they are fine, okay, maybe, they could continue along with their business, but what they were doing was so bad and poor that the regulators should think about this matter.

And with regards to wallet security, we've been tying up and partnering with a variety of companies. And with regards to new investees, here's the list: nChain in the U.K., we have a strategic partnership in place on cryptocurrency security; and with Company A, from Korea; and Company B, from Taiwan; and Company C, from Denmark. Currently, we are preparing a definitive agreement, so that we can conclude a contract currently for cold wallet or hot wallet or new breakthrough security systems that are dynamic. We are interested in companies that are developing these technologies. We would like to get in touch, incorporate the technology in our business, so that we could create an exchange that's the safest in the world. We're not in a rush, and I've already made that declaration. For domestic and overseas exchange businesses, we've already been receiving the approval, but we decided to partner with Huobi from China. The reason why is because this company has 1.65 million accounts and the maximum daily transaction volume was more than JPY 510 billion, and over 4 years, they've been operating the platform in a steady manner. So the operational excellence and their technology is something that I regard highly of. And I would like to be well prepared to open up the exchange by partnering with Huobi. Actually, our exchange platform is already ready before the partnership, but I said, no, we shouldn't start the business yet because on a group-wide basis, we have about 23 million customers in total. 4 million plus for SBI SECURITIES, in the banking business more than 3 million and Forex more than 1 million accounts. This is the scale of our group. So if we taint one of the companies under SBI, everything is going to break apart. So I'm being very strict when it comes to protecting our brand. I don't want to name the company with SBI in the overseas businesses easily these days. So we are now registered for cryptocurrencies' exchange and trading business. And we were registered as of September, but I said we shouldn't start right away. So we have partnership with Huobi, I asked my people to ensure that the securities for the wallet is enhanced. And I also said we're not going to carry minor currencies like NEM. For minor currencies, involvement by North Korea is being rumored. And if we carry these currencies, it might be dangerous. Therefore, we will only do major ones. Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, XRP, Ethereum, is the degree to which we will proceed and our own currency as well, the tokens that we are likely to issue going forward.

We're going to limit the type of currencies we will carry with regards to the timing because of the Coincheck issue. We will look at what the FSA is doing as well as what other currency exchanges are doing and what's going to happen with trading across the world as well as what the trends around regulations across the world and also G20 discussions and the outcome that's going to take place from March 19 to 20, and I heard they are going to take up cryptocurrencies as an issue. So based on the trends, we are going to make decisions. And before that, we would like to ensure security measures are at a level where we will be confident. However, from January 30, we will be starting pilot tests with customers, a limited number of customers, by just handling XRP through DigitAEX that's going to be setup in Hong Kong. So we will be cautious in our operations, and we would like to ensure that we are never going to change the name of SBI, and we won't inconvenience others.

And for Bitcoin Cash mining, we started in one location overseas, which has started from this month. And for Bitcoin Cash, this is going to be the center of Bitcoin mining. And we're also thinking about 2 other locations. We've decided on one, but for the third location, we are considering, which is a location where we'll be doing mining. We don't want concentration of Bitcoin mining, which was China. We would like to rectify the situation and try to acquire market share of 30%. So in the ecosystem for cryptocurrencies, we would like to reinforce our function, and we would like to ensure liquidity and for clearing purposes and as a transaction authorizer, we would like to contribute to the development of Bitcoin Cash as an active miner. So we would like to establish a cryptocurrency ecosystem overseas as well.

With Company A in the U.S., we've already built a partnership which is focused on ecosystem based on taken issuance and liquidity. And we've been making joint investments into great companies, so we will partner with Company A, so that globally, we can create and expand a cryptocurrency ecosystem because cryptocurrencies are global currency, it's great for us, it's a positive for us, because when you're in the financial business, it usually is local or domestic, you're following Japanese regulations, and the companies are set up in Japan, and the services are used in Japan, and if you do global FX trading, it's legal currency versus legal currencies. So going forward, we're going to see the elimination of exchange rates. So we're preparing for ICOs as well at SBI Cryptocurrency Holdings. So in what way? We have services and assets in for varieties of ways and one thing is service-backed tokens. It's designed to be available for services provided by companies under the aegis of SBI Cryptocurrency Holdings. And people who have it will be able to use their services for free or under favorable conditions. Asset-backed tokens are tokens backed up by assets, which includes the issuers IP. So if one of the companies in the group sells their stake and is generating capital gains, depending on the amount of tokens they have, part of the capital gains can be distributed. Those are the things that are being considered. So the value of the issuer and the value of the token should be in link with one another. So a number of ideas are going to be seeked and we will have discussions with experts to issue tokens. Supporting ICOs on nongroup entities by fully utilizing know-hows acquired through ICO on intermediate holding companies is something we would like to do as well. We would like to create a model ICO. And T1R is a company that we would like to work together with, which is currently in process of definitive agreement. We will manage wide range of dealings and issues.

At Morningstar, we will start a ratings business as well. And we will also have a cryptocurrency portal site.

So with regards to the existing financial ecosystem, the cryptocurrency ecosystem should generate good synergies going forward. We already have been seeing it emerge for cryptocurrency customers or the operators. When they open an account, they open it with our online bank. At the same time, SBI SECURITIES accounts are opened as well. So we're seeing the number of accounts increase for both entities. You could see these numbers as of January, which is growing substantially, which is 4,095 and 6,422. And we would like to establish a new financial ecosystem by expanding the Mobile-first service and now with the era of mobile and the ratio of mobiles for our situation is increasing, it's -- the age of facing the computer in front of you is done. And as a measure to proactively promote financial transactions using mobile devices, we are rapidly spreading it, and we are in cooperation with the various financial institutions. DriveWealth is from the United States, can be a securities and also foreign exchange. We have realized the fractional share investing service and as Moven company, which was established in 2011 and started business in 2013, as the first mobile-based bank in the world, and of course, in fact they need a bank. Of course, there's a mobile bank, but not just that, but we would like to have the regional banks at the back of this, and would like to expand their businesses too.

And the third point for Mobile-first is the Japan Bank Consortium, for which SBI serves as secretariat, is preparing a settlement app with simple UI and UX, and also support for initiatives to realize a provision of Mobile-first Financial Services. This Israel company has really good decentralized mobile applications. This is an investee company of the FinTech Fund. We have established SBI PayKey Asia with them. So provides app PayKey, the only service that enables users to make seamless payments on a messenger service platform using a keyboard app. And this to promote Mobile-first is very important. And also the authentication technology with SBI BITS, we have developed the face authentication. Within the researchers, 60% of the employees are foreigners, and all of them have PhD's and this was developed by a Thai researcher, and very good quality of face authentication. By having all these type of securities, I want to IPO or separately issue a coin, do an initial coin offering, I'm either going to do either one of them. And currently, this is the financial ecosystem and the cryptocurrency ecosystem and the mobile finance ecosystem. These 3, we would like to generate a synergy and a comprehensive service provided, and steadily advancing efforts towards actualization of intrinsic corporate value. I've been repeating this and the time is limited, so I'll move forward. The company listed on KOSDAQ, South Korea, formerly SBI AXES, now SBI FinTech Solutions, and we brought the EC payment business and FinTech-related business and what happened to the share price? JPY 9.8 billion became JPY 26 billion in terms of the market cap. And just bringing little amount of technology, it increases that much. So the value that we generated is not surface. It's intrinsic value, but we have many of those. So as you can see here, if you actually place it in the market, you'll know the true value, and right now, Quark is prepared to be offered in NASDAQ, and we have already decided of the managing underwriter by the end of this week. We will be prepared. So biotech investments, with this, everything will be completed according to my plan. And for the insurance group, 5 companies together will be IPOed. That's the plan. And also, SBI Biotech, SBI ALApharma, we will bring it to Hong Kong, and made it into intermediate holding company and that is starting to prepare for IPO. And SBI Capital Management, this is doing the Asset Management Business for the group, and they specialize that. And having efficient and central management of funds and foreign exchange for the business, and this is going to be independently IPOed.

And for the group's vision, 3 -- excuse me, I did say that develop a composition of the Financial Service, Asset Management and Biotechnology-related Business, profit before income tax expense composition by segment in 3 years will be 6:3:1. And there is a possibility that the funds may be not become better, but maybe, it's not 6:3:1, it may be 6:2:2. This time, JPY 24 billion. If we didn't do the impairment of that, that will be JPY 78 billion -- JPY 74.8 billion in reality. We still have time to the fourth quarter. And ROE at 10%. In 3 three quarters, we've reached 9%. So within the full year, for sure, we will achieve 10%. And the annual dividend we said about JPY 100, so JPY 70 returned. There's a possibility of an upside. Therefore, I think it's a good line. And endeavor to double the market capitalization that is presently intrinsic. The market cap presently is about JPY 330 billion. I said that before. But at this point, JPY 620 billion, and the peak is JPY 639.1 billion. Towards achieving all this with the whole group, we're going to implement thorough progress management on KPIs formulated by the group companies, and also, we are going to secure human resources, which is the source of corporate competitiveness. And from the new hires and also new career hires, and the total of employees right now is 5,219. We had an ad on a newspaper before too.

We are going to look at the capability of that person, not seniority or system. We are going to focus on that person and that talent and do the hiring. And the female manager ratio is at 15.4%, meaning that the evaluation process according with ability and without gender bias. And we'll also have the introduction of a career opening system, by means including an internal recruiting and self-application program. If you want to change your jobs, you can within the group. And also, we will be watching the age limit for reemployment after the mandatory retirement, of course, under the condition that the person can still perform with great power, energy and intellect. As long as they can perform that way, they can continue working. And also, we will establish the next generation financial study group. As a group, we have established a next generation financial study group as a group across organization. I myself believe that introduction of specialists, a system is implemented.