Japan insurer Millea quits Nasdaq, U.S. accounting

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese insurer Millea Holdings Inc. (8766.T) said on Thursday it will voluntarily have its shares delisted from the U.S. Nasdaq market and stop reporting its earnings under U.S. accounting rules to save costs.

Millea, a holding company with both life and non-life insurance operations, also announced plans to buy back up to 7 million of its own shares, or 31 billion yen ($253 million) worth. That is equal to about 0.8 percent of its outstanding shares.

Several foreign companies have recently delisted their shares from U.S. exchanges due to the high cost of maintaining a listing and complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a set of tough accounting laws enacted to combat fraud after the Enron scandal.

Millea said it no longer made sense to pay to keep its listing and report under U.S. accounting standards given that trading of its shares on Nasdaq accounted for only 2 percent of its total trading volume over the past 12 months.

The company, owned about one-third by foreign investors, said its American Depositary Shares (ADS) would be delisted from Nasdaq on July 26. It will arrange for trading to take place on the U.S. over-the-counter market from the same day.

The insurer will continue reporting earnings under Japanese standards and plans to keep its listings on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Osaka Securities Exchange.

Similarly, security software firm Trend Micro (4704.T) in May delisted its American ADSs from the Nasdaq and ended its reporting obligations to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission while keeping its listing on the TSE.