http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pi ... efer=japan
<blockquote id=\"quote\"><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica\" id=\"quote\">quote:<hr height=\"1\" noshade id=\"quote\">May 18 (Bloomberg) -- Sega Corp., the maker of ``Sonic the Hedgehog\'\' games, plans to merge with Sammy Corp., its biggest shareholder, forming a games maker with sales forecast at 501 billion yen ($4.41 billion) in the current business year.
The companies, which will merge under a holding company in October, will hold a press briefing on the transaction at 5 p.m. in Tokyo, according to a company statement. Sammy President Hajime Satomi will be president of the new company.
Sammy, the biggest maker of pachinko, Japanese-style pinball gambling machines, bought a 22 percent stake in Sega last year after an earlier merger effort was abandoned. Closer cooperation may help the companies save money, executives have said.
``There\'s no resource sharing. We haven\'t decided how to do that,\'\' Scott Steinberg, vice president of marketing for Sega of America Inc., said in an interview at the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles last week.
Sega shareholders will receive 0.28 share of the holding company for each Sega shares. Sammy shareholders will receive one of the new company\'s shares for each Sammy share, the statement said.
Sega\'s full-year net income more than doubled to 8.8 billion yen during the year ended March 31, from 3.1 billion yen a year earlier, helped by demand for arcade game machines, the company said in a statement filed through the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Sega expects net income for the year ending March 31, 2005, to fall 8.7 percent to 8 billion yen, while sales will rise 6.7 percent to 204 billion yen.
Sammy today reported net income for the year ended March 31 rose 40 percent to 32.2 billion yen on sales that gained 52 percent to 251 billion yen. Sammy sees net income rising 12 percent to 36 billion yen this year on sales of 297 billion yen.
Sega shares rose 1 percent to 1,000 yen in Tokyo Stock Exchange trading. Sammy shares rose 4.8 percent to 4,330 yen.<hr height=\"1\" noshade id=\"quote\"></blockquote id=\"quote\"></font id=\"quote\">