Nippon Steel Corporation has received the “2024 Award for Excellence in Corporate Disclosure” in the Steel/Non Ferrous Metal Industry category, from the Securities Analysts Association of Japan (“SAAJ”). This year, in addition to being rated first place in the Steel/Non Ferrous Metal Industry category, we received the second-highest score in “Disclosure to Individual Investors” category.

The SAAJ established objective review criteria to determine the relative excellence of companies’ disclosure based on the quality, quantity, timing, and other factors related to disclosure. On this basis, the SAAJ created the Awards for Excellence in Corporate Disclosure for the purpose of promoting and improving companies’ information disclosure and has given the award to selected companies annually since 1995.

Awards are made in three categories: specific industries, emerging market companies, and disclosure to individual investors. In fiscal 2024, a total of 293 companies in 18 industries were screened for the industry awards. For the category of disclosure to individual investors, 31 companies from the industry-specific category and the emerging market stocks category were selected as candidate companies.

In the selection by industry, Nippon Steel received the highest evaluation according to the criterion of “disclosure through briefings, interviews, presentation materials, etc.,” and participating analysts commented that “the presentation materials, including those on the latest technological trends, are excellent with great information.”

In the criterion of “management’s stance on investor relations (IR),” we were highly praised for the “IR stance, such as the top management’s active engagement in disclosing information.” As for “ESG-related information,” we were also highly evaluated for the “qualitative and quantitative disclosure of the roadmap and details of initiatives toward decarbonization”; “good explanation of relevance of ESG to the enhancement of corporate value”; and “management’s proactive initiatives to ESG.”

Concerning the disclosure to individual investors, we were highly praised for the content of the briefings for individual investors as our content was easy to understand and contained much information to help general investors better understand the company.

Nippon Steel intends to further enhance timely, appropriate, and fair information disclosure and constructive dialogue, and to meet the expectations of all stakeholders, in keeping with our efforts to achieve sustainable growth and mid- to long-term improvement in our corporate value.