Howa Machinery, Ltd.

On the Tokyo Stock Exchange, individual material stocks were active, with Forside, Howa Machinery, and Tomita Electric surging. Forside announced that it will acquire all shares of Macalou Digital, a company engaged in website production and hosting services, on October 1, making it a subsidiary, and the stock rose 27.9% to 110 yen. Howa Machinery announced strengthening its partnership with Prodrone, a startup in industrial drones, and was bought up to the limit-up price of 1,912 yen. Tomita Electric was favored for its upward revision of its first-half consolidated earnings forecast, and updated its year-high at the limit-up price of 4,855 yen. Other stocks such as Eyes, Nippon Ichi Software, Blue Innovation, Asahi Concrete Industry, and Will Smart also rose on individual factors. Limit-up stocks reached five, including Sei Construction Industry, Copa Corporation, and J Pharma.

Howa Machinery announced on the 7th that it will strengthen its collaboration with ProDrone, a startup developing industrial drones based in Nagoya, in drone development and manufacturing. Howa Machinery has subscribed to ProDrone's third-party allotment of shares (the amount of which is less than 10% of consolidated net assets), and will also set up a mass production plant for ProDrone within its premises. Howa Machinery stated that the impact on its business performance is expected to be minimal.