MOSCOW (MRC) -- Monday’s talks between Japan's Idemitsu Kosan Co Ltd. and its founding family did not yield any agreement regarding the family's opposition to the oil refiner's proposal to buy rival Showa Shell Sekiyu KK, the family's lawyer said, reported Reuters.
The country's second-biggest refiner has argued the acquisition is its best course of action in a shrinking domestic oil market, where five large and three small refiners compete.
But descendants of founder Sazo Idemitsu, including octogenarian son Shosuke Idemitsu - a former president and now honorary chairman - have said the companies are too different for a merger to work.
They have also said they saw no chance of compromise, the lawyer, Takujiro Hamada, previously told Reuters.
On Monday, Idemitsu Kosan President Takashi Tsukioka and colleagues met family members including Shosuke Idemitsu and his two sons to discuss the proposal, which may dilute the family's minority stake, Hamada told reporters after the talks.
He also said the parties agreed to meet again, but had not set a date.
The proposal includes Idemitsu Kosan's purchase of 33.3% of Showa Shell Sekiyu from Royal Dutch Shell PLC.
The family's 33.92% stake in Idemitsu Kosan is large enough to veto the proposal when presented for consideration at a special shareholders' meeting likely later this year.
As MRC informed earlier, Japanese refiner Idemitsu Kosan Co. and smaller rival Showa Shell Sekiyu announced in April 2016 that they would merge on April 1 next year. Japan's No.2 and No.5 refiners by revenue agreed last November in a deal worth approximately USD4 B to create the nation's second-biggest refiner sometime between October 2016 and April 2017.
Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
Idemitsu Kosan is a Japanese petroleum company. It owns and operates oil platforms, refineries and produces and sells petroleum, oils and petrochemical products. The company runs two petrochemical plants in Chiba and Tokuyama. The two naphtha crackers can produce up to 997,000 tonnes of ethylene per year.
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