Nippon Shokubai Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan; www.shokubai.co.jp) and Sanyo Chemical Industries, Ltd. (Kyoto, Japan; www.sanyo-chemical.co.jp) have announced that their proposed business integration has been delayed due to the global outbreak of COVID-19. This integration was planned to establish a joint holding company, Synfomix, Ltd. by way of a joint share transfer, which would subsequently become the integrated holding company serving as parent to the two companies.
It was scheduled under the Final Agreement that the establishment date of the Integrated Holding Company (the effective date of the Share Transfer) would be October 1, 2020. However, as the recent global outbreak of COVID-19 and the sharp decline in the oil and oil product markets, among other factors, have caused the performance and other aspects of the companies, as well as the financial, economic, market and other elements of the business environment, which served as basis for the agreement on the Business Integration, to become unpredictable. Therefore, the companies adopted a resolution in their respective extraordinary meeting of the Board of Directors to postpone the Business Integration and reassess the Share Transfer ratio agreed under the Final Agreement, and executed a Memorandum of Understanding Regarding the Final Agreement.