Listing on the TSE through the sale of state-held shares, and stepping out of the merger plan (2003)

Between national policy and commercial return

Had it been folded into the four-company merger, JAPEX would have found itself on the side being reorganised together with the debt settlement of the failed Japan Oil Development. Under external pressure — the dismantling of the petroleum corporation — what JAPEX sought to protect was independent management itself. Preparations began in August 2000 when the interim report appeared, and President Tanahashi Yuji’s manoeuvring, which used the funding of Sakhalin-1 as the ground for arranging conditions for a solo listing, can be seen as aimed at that avoidance.

That said, going to market did not make the weight of national policy disappear. The government’s holding fell from 49.94% to 34.00% and then returned to 37.84%, and the largest shareholder is still the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. As the company itself admitted at the 2023 results briefing, that there was no quick remedy for a share price below book value, the capital market’s assessment remained an unresolved problem twenty years after listing. The listing was not an answer but a procedure that opened to the outside world the question of which to prioritise: national policy or commercial return.