Nippon Oil, Nippon Mining to postpone integration until April 2010+

TOKYO, Feb. 27 Kyodo - Nippon Oil Corp. and Nippon Mining Holdings Inc. said Friday they will postpone their integration for six months until April next year as their preparation of a statement to be filed with U.S. authorities will take more time than earlier estimated.

In December, they said they would sign a management integration agreement in
March this year and found a holding company for the integration in October.
Taking into account the time needed for the preparation of the registration
statement for submission to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the
two firms have also decided to put off the agreement signing by seven months
until October.
The statement to the SEC is required as U.S. investors own more than 10 percent
of Nippon Oil and Nippon Mining Holdings.
A general meeting of shareholders on the integration will also be moved from
this June to next January, the two companies said.
The establishment of core operating companies will come in July next year
instead of April next year as earlier scheduled, they said.
Nippon Oil is the largest petroleum products distributor in Japan and Nippon
Mining is the sixth. Their integration is expected to create the world's
eighth-largest oil company.
==Kyodo
2009-02-27 22:53:25