The holding company of Ashikaga Bank, a regional lender once nationalized after falling into negative net worth, has applied for listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, sources said Wednesday.
The listing of Ashikaga Holdings Co. may come by the end of this year, the sources said.
The holding company's predecessor was delisted from the TSE in 2004 after the Tochigi Prefecture-based bank was put under government control in 2003 with a negative net worth of more than ¥100 billion.
In 2008, Ashikaga was bought by an investment group led by Nomura Holdings Inc.
Ashikaga had aimed for relisting in the year to March 2011 but dropped the plan in the aftermath of the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2008.
Ashikaga Holdings has been reconstructing itself with the help of the Nomura group and secured a net group profit of ¥15.4 billion in the year to last March.