In presenting the performance overview of Ricoh Leasing for the first six months of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, I would first like to express my appreciation for your loyal patronage.
The business environment remained adverse during the six months ended September 30, 2011. This was due primarily to the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent concern about power shortages, deflation and the rapid appreciation of the yen, and the decreased effects of front-loading of income under the new lease accounting standards. Consequently, we posted sales totaling 115.1 billion yen, which was comparable to those of the same period a year before. Meanwhile, bad debt expenses decreased thanks to prudent credit reviews and the government' s economic stimulus measures for small and medium-sized companies, and funding costs declined as market interest rates remained low. In addition, income from re-releasing increased. As a result, we marked the highest ever profits as operating income rose 12.0% year-on-year to 8.7 billion yen and net income was 5.1 billion yen, an increase of 15.6%.
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 The Company' s envisioned goal under its medium-term management strategy, launched in April 2011, is to become a gfinancial service company that sustains growth with profits.h And Ricoh Leasing has been making steady steps forward to achieve this. There was sluggish sentiment regarding capital investment in business sectors during the six months ended September 30, 2011. Nevertheless, we reinforced relationships with prime vendors, strengthened sales contacts with excellent users and made other efforts in pursuing aggressive marketing activities. As a result, the amount of transactions Ricoh Leasing handled increased 11.5% to 140.9 billion yen, although the amount for the overall industry remained on a downward trend and declined 4.2% year-on-year. The balance of operating assets began to increase and totaled 557.0 billion yen, up 2.1% from the end of the previous fiscal year, bringing to a halt the declining trend that had continued since the financial crisis that began in 2008.
Specifically, in the segment of office and IT-related equipment, we have been focusing on proposing services on leased property such as carbon offset leasing. In the medical equipment segment, we have widened our target customer base to include midsize hospitals and business operators in the nursing care and welfare sectors on top of medical clinics, which had been our primary customers. We are also taking aggressive initiatives to exploit new fields of business. Ricoh Leasing will continue to create more growth segments by exploring new opportunities in areas where it can respond to society' s needs, such as arranging air ambulances to help eliminate gaps between communities concerning medical support and providing small-sized wind turbine generators to accommodate energy-saving needs.
Ensuring stable fund procurement is an important management issue for Ricoh Leasing as the Company seeks a great deal of funds from financial markets and financial institutions to purchase lease property and others. It is, therefore, essential that we enhance our equity position and thereby maintain and improve our corporate rating. The Company' s basic dividend policy is to distribute profits to shareholders stably over the long term while strengthening its financial position. Based on this policy, we have determined to pay an interim dividend of 19.5 yen per share as of September 30, 2011.
We thank our shareholders and investors for their continued support and understanding for Ricoh Leasing.
December 2011
Sadahiro Arikawa
Representative Director,President and Chief Executive Officer
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