Sumitomo and Sakura Declare Break in Merger Transactions
Date Posted: 2000-04-01
Japan’s Sakura Bank and Sumitomo Bank , which are set to merge in April 2002, have decided to put off indefinitely their initial plans to buy one another’s shares. According to the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper online, the two banks originally planned to build a cross-holding alliance as the first stage of the full-scale merger. The two, which received governmental financial help to clean up bad loans, decided against the plan, however, because they wished to avoid giving the wrong impression that the public funds they had received would be used to purchase their own stock, or that they would try to manipulate their share prices, it said. According to the report, which cited no specific sources, Sakura and Sumitomo had planned to buy some 100 billion yen (roughly $943 million) worth of their shares by the end of this month.
