Press Release

November 9, 2004

APM Co., Ltd.
Advantage Partners, Inc.

Advantage Partners to Sell Shares in Yayoi Co., Ltd.

Advantage Partners, Inc. is pleased to announce that the Limited Liability Investment Partnership Advantage Partners MBI Fund II (“MBI Fund II”) has agreed on November 8 to sell part of the shares of common stock and all exercisable stock options of Yayoi Co., Ltd. (“Yayoi”) owned by MBI Fund II to livedoor Co., Ltd. (“livedoor”), and subsequently undertake a share exchange between livedoor and Yayoi for the remaining shares, making Yayoi a wholly owned subsidiary of livedoor. Yayoi, formerly Intuit Co., Ltd. (“Intuit”), a Japanese subsidiary of Intuit Inc. of the United States, is an industry leader of enterprise packaged software tailored to small/medium-sized enterprises and sole proprietorship. Intuit shares were acquired from Intuit Inc. of the United States in February 2003 by an MBO (Management Buy-out) consortium formed by MBI Fund II, managed by Advantage Partners and APM Co., Ltd., and the Intuit management team at that time.

Yayoi products are used by over 400,000 companies, and the company boasts more than 90,000 paid subscribers for product support. Its flagship “Yayoi Accounting” series has been ranked first for eight consecutive years by Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. in the Business Processing Software category of the “Subscribers’ Survey - Best PC Software”. After its investment in February 2003, Advantage Partners, through a team of experienced managers sent in as outside directors and auditors, worked together with Yayoi management to achieve consistent improvement in corporate value through the formulation and implementation of growth strategies and the institutionalization of internal control structures, which led to significant improvement in business performance. This transaction embodies a unique alignment of Yayoi’s interests to further enhance its customer base and the product strength and marketability of the “Yayoi series” brand products, which lead the industry in number of copies sold, on the one hand, and livedoor’s objective to significantly improve its presence as a domestic software vendor on the other.

Leveraging on the anticipated synergies with livedoor’s software division, Yayoi will be able to further grow its business in the area of enterprise packaged software and will have a new opportunity to cross-sell livedoor’s financial and contents-related services to Yayoi’s existing customers to increase the corporate value to a new level. With the successful consummation of this transaction, Advantage Partners is committed to continuing its involvement in buy-out transactions in the future to make contribution to the further growth of the Japanese private equity market.

End of the Document.