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To: John Walliker who wrote (38409)	3/19/2000 9:06:00 PM
From: Don Green	Respond to of 93625

O.T. But interesting! It is making big news in the Japanese press Hitachi To Collect Fees From Group Firms For Using Its Name Monday, March 20, 2000 TOKYO (Nikkei)--Hitachi Ltd. (6501) plans to begin in April collecting fees from about 600 Hitachi group firms for using the Hitachi name in their company names and marketing material, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun learned Sunday. Currently, Hitachi shoulders the cost for group matters, such as advertising, research into mergers and acquisitions and protection of the intellectual property rights. Hitachi plans to charge 0.06% of a group firm's sales to companies that are not consolidated subsidiaries for using the Hitachi name in the corporate name and company logo. This will rise to 0.24% if Hitachi is featured in marketing materials or company profiles and 0.3% if the Hitachi name appears on products. There is no precedent for such a move by a major Japanese company. Hitachi Credit Corp. (8586), which posts parent sales exceeding 400 billion yen, will need to pay about 1 billion yen a year for using the Hitachi name. Some Hitachi group companies are likely to mark losses due to the new payments. Hitachi expects to collect a total of 5-10 billion yen in the first year. The company plans to use the money for group advertising and research on M&A. (The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Monday edition)