Officials from Japanese toy, animated series and game maker Bandai and veteran video game creator Namco have formerly announced the merger of the two companies into new entity Namco Bandai Holdings Inc. The company's shares have now been listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where it has set its dividend at ¥18 ($0.16) per share for the first half of the year for Bandai stockholders and ¥12 ($0.11) for Namco stockholders.

An earlier Japanese statement by the now-combined company revealed that it is projecting a group net profit of ¥24.4 billion ($215.9m) in the current business year, and expects to log a consolidated pre-tax profit of ¥44.1 billion ($390.2m) on combined sales of ¥475 billion ($4.2bn) during the year ending March 31st, 2006.

The combined companies have also launched an official website, egalitarianly set up at the URL bandainamco.co.jp and including a 'Bandai Namco' ordered logo, which includes a message from the two companies' leaders, as well as a full list of the combined group's properties, which includes such offbeat subsidiaries as restaurant chain Italian Tomato Ltd and advertising firm Sotsu Agency Co., Ltd, as well as obvious company parts such as Banpresto, Sunrise, and Japanese developer Monolith.

The Namco-Bandai merger was first announced in May of this year, when the companies suggested that the declining birth rate in Japan and the diversification of customers’ hobbies and interests made the move a necessity. The two companies are considered a relatively good match by Japanese analysts, and indeed, Namco has worked with Bandai on several previous occasions, most notably using Bandai's hugely popular Gundam license.