Japan National Oil Corp hired Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, Merrill Lynch & Co and Mitsubishi Securities Co to value its energy holdings ahead of a stake sale, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Friday, without saying where it obtained the information.
The banks will attempt to assess the value of state-owned Japan National's holdings in about 70 oil and natural gas development companies, the paper said.
Japan National Oil plans to sell stakes in 34 units with high asset values through a public tender in October, aiming to raise as much as ¥300 billion (US$2.5 billion), the paper said.
Nippon Oil Corp, Japan's biggest oil refiner, plans to spend as much as ¥80 billion to buy part of five or six of the Japan National stakes, the report said.
Officials at Lehman, Merrill and Mitsubishi weren't available for comment. Japan National officials also weren't available.
Japan National Oil, which will be dissolved by the Japanese government by March 31, 2005, after it ran up almost US$4 billion in total losses, needs to sell its entire holdings following the liquidation.
Japan National last month hired Daiwa Securities SMBC Co, Nikko Citigroup Ltd and Nomura Holdings Inc to sell more than 10 percent of Japan Petroleum Exploration Corp, an exploration unit of Japan National.
It plans to sell its entire two-thirds stake in Japan Petroleum -- one of about 70 companies it will sell or liquidate stakes in before it is dissolved -- and is also planning to sell an oil and gas company to be formed through the merger of Inpex Corp, Japan Oil Development Co and Sakhalin Oil & Gas Development Co.
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