Shearman & Sterling’s Japan M&A team has ended an extremely successful 12 months with recognition for its role on Nippon Oil Corporation’s management integration with Nippon Mining Holdings, recently awarded M&A Deal of the Year in the prestigious IFLR Asia Awards 2011.

The firm represented Nippon Oil in its management integration with Nippon Mining Holdings through the establishment of a joint holding company by means of a share transfer. The businesses of the two companies were integrated and restructured under the joint holding company with the core business companies of (i) Petroleum Refining and Marketing, (ii) Oil and Natural Gas Exploration & Production and (iii) Metals being established as direct subsidiaries of the joint holding company.

Nippon Oil is an industry leader in the refinement and sale of petroleum products and is also engaged in the import and sale of gas and generation and sale of electricity, with annual consolidated sales of approximately 7,524 billion yen. Nippon Mining is engaged in the production and sale of petroleum products, non-ferrous metal products and processed electronic materials products and has annual consolidated sales of approximately 4,340 billion yen. The new company is known as JX Holdings Inc.

The deal is one of the largest M&A transactions in Japanese history.

The Shearman & Sterling team was led by Tokyo office managing partner Masahisa Ikeda (Tokyo-Capital Markets), with support from partner Ken Lebrun (Tokyo-Mergers & Acquisitions) and associates Brian Wheeler (Tokyo-Mergers & Acquisitions), Joji Ozawa (London-Capital Markets), Kumiko Nishiyama (Tokyo-Capital Markets) and Kokoro Motegi (Tokyo-Mergers & Acquisitions).