SINGAPORE - China Bearing (Singapore) has received a fresh extension of a deadline to meet requirements for a new listing, it announced on Tuesday (Jan 9) evening.

The company now has another six months - until June 20, 2018 - to get its affairs in order for its proposed shift from the mainboard to Catalist, the Singapore Exchange's secondary board.

It sought the extra time partly to complete the due diligence needed for the reverse takeover of an Indonesian nickel mine - a proposed acquisition that was announced about a year and a half ago in August 2016.

Other reasons cited in the extension request included the company's need to get shareholders' approval of both the proposed acquisition and the relisting.

China Bearing wants to pick up the entire issued and paid-up share capital of Singapore-incorporated Far East Mining Pte Ltd's wholly owned subsidiary FE Resources Pte Ltd.

The company would then gain access to concession rights to a 1,301-hectare nickel ore mine in Morowali, in the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi.

The October 2016 sale and purchase agreement put the value of the deal at US$50 million, to be fully satisfied by allotting and issuing up to roughly 95.8 million new, fully paid-up ordinary shares to the vendor.

But the deal has taken some time to go through.

China Bearing's new six-month extension is the latest of several administrative reprieves over the past two years.

The firm became a cash company in December 2015 after disposing of its operating subsidiary. Under bourse rules, it then had 12 months to meet requirements for a new listing.

Citing the due diligence process for its proposed acquisition, the company has requested and been granted various extensions since the initial deadline.

It also inked an eleventh-hour deal with the other parties in the mine transaction to extend the long stop date for the fulfilment and waiver of conditions related to the proposed acquisition.

That deadline has been moved from Dec 31, 2017, to Dec 31, 2018, or a later date agreed upon by China Bearing and Far East Mining.

An agreement to postpone the deadline was reached on Dec 28, 2017, just a few days before the clock ran out.