JFE, IHI Ship Units Need More Time on Merger Plan, Mishima Says

JFE Holdings Inc.’s shipbuilding unit, Japan’s second-largest by output, said plunging demand means it needs more time to assess a planned merger with IHI Corp.’s operations, 19 months after the tie-up was proposed. “We’d like to complete an assessment of the shipbuilding integration as soon as possible,” Shinjiro Mishima, chief executive officer of the Kawasaki, Japan-based unit, Universal Shipbuilding Corp., said in an interview.