Nippon Shokubai and Sanyo Chemical Industries announced that their merger agreement and formation of joint venture has been postponed over the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
This merger 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.
The companies said that Covid-19 impacted the performance, financial, economic, market and other business factors. In view of this, the companies have adopted a resolution to delay the business integration and review the share transfer ratio.
“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 bases for the agreement on the business integration, to become unpredictable,” Nippon Shokubai and Sanyo Chemical said in a joint statement.
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.
In a memorandum of understanding about the final agreement, Nippon Shokubai and and Sanyo Chemical agreed that the establishment would now take place on 1 April 2021.
The companies said, “There are no significant changes to the terms of the Business Integration from the terms announced 29 November 2019 except for the schedule of the business integration including the establishment date of the integrated holding company and the Share Transfer ratio.”