April 15, 2008
Press Release
Daiwa Securities SMBC Principal Investments Co. Ltd.
Regarding the Acceptance of a Tender Offer for VERITE Corporation Inc.
.
Attention
This document is an unofficial translation and summary of a press release announced
on April 15, 2008 by Daiwa Securities SMBC Principal Investments Co. Ltd. The
original press release is in Japanese.
Daiwa Securities SMBC Principal Investments Co. Ltd. (hereinafter; the Company)
decided to accept a tender offer from DIGICO Holdings Ltd., for all holdings of commonand preferred shares of VERITE Corporation (hereinafter; VERITE), listed in thesecond section of Tokyo Stock Exchange.
[Details]
1. Reason for the acceptance of the tender offer.
The Company acquired the preferred shares of VERITE in December 2006 (375,000class A shares, 125,000 class B shares, 125,000 class C shares, which includes
125,000 class A preferred shares converted into common shares by the exercise ofacquisition option in October 2007)
Since the acquisition of shares, the Company has supported the management
and employees of VERITE to improve the corporate value and revitalize its business
operation by the development and implementation of the medium-termmanagement plan, including the review over the store operation and the launch ofthe new business categories.
To further develop this approach, DIGICO as a DTC (the marketing and sales
division of De Beers Group) Sightholder (company having the right to directly
purchase rough diamonds from DTC) recently offered to take over the VERITE
shares from the Company, as it had considered cooperation with VERITE. TheCompany has given a meticulous review over the offer, and concluded that theacceptance of the offer would lead to the further business development of VERITE

and decided to accept the offer.
2. Summary of the acceptance of the tender offer(1) Number of shares which the Company is to accept for the offer
Scheduled number of shares of acceptance: 6,250,000 shares(All options attached to preferred shares to acquire common shares arescheduled to be exercised)(2) Number of shares which the Company is to hold and ownership percentage after
transfer is completed
Number of shares held before the offer: 6,250,000 shares (25.35% ownership)
Number of shares held after the offer: 0 shares (0.0% ownership)
Note: ownership percentage is calculated based on the outstanding commonshares as of October 31st, 2007 with all the preferred shares to be converted into
common shares. Number of shares held and ownership percentage after the offer
is based on the assumption that all shares scheduled to be accepted for the offer
are settled.
(3) Schedule of the tender offer
April 15th, 2008

Announcement of tender offer

April 18th, 2008

Commencement of tender offer

May 27th, 2008

Final date of tender offer

June 4th, 2008

Settlement date for tender offer

3. Offeree company(1)NameVERITE Corporation Inc.

(2)Representative

Masahiro Ikudome(3)Head office address

3-33-8 Tsuruya-cho Kanagawa-ku Yokohama-shi,Kanagawa-ken(4)Establishment

May 13th, 1948

(5)Capital

JPY 3,772 million(6)Business

Retail sales of jewelry products

4. Tender offeror(1)Name

DIGICO Holdings Ltd.

(2)Representative

Chetan Chinubbai Choksi(3)Head office address

Star House, 3 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, HongKong(4)Establishment

December 20th, 2000

(5)Capital

USD 40.3 million(6)BusinessHolding company

5. Future prospects
There is a possibility that the Company might not be able to sell off itsshareholdings due to the shortage of acceptance for the tender offer.
End