Apart from the above, inner atmosphere of a four-necked flask equipped with a stirring device, a reflux condenser and a thermometer was replaced with nitrogen gas, and then the flask was charged with 6.6 g (17 mmol) of 5-decyloxy-2-(4-bromophenyl)-pyrimidine, 0.23 g (0.2 mmol) of tetrakis-triphenylphosphine-palladium, 2.4 g (60 mmol) of sodium hydroxide and 60 ml of tetrahydrofuran. Subsequently, 50 ml of a solution prepared by dissolving 20 mmol of the above-obtained E-6-hydroxy-1-heptenyldihydroxyborane in tetrahydrofuran was dropwise added thereto at room temperature. Then, the whole mixture was heated under reflux with stirring for 6 hours. After cooling the reaction mixture to room temperature, 5 ml of 10% aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide and 2 ml of 30% aqueous solution of hydrogen peroxide were added, and the resulting mixture was stirred for one hour. The mixture was extracted with ether, and the organic layer was twice washed with each 20 ml portion of saturated aqueous solution of sodium chloride and dried over anhydrous magnesium sulfate. The solvent was distilled off, and the residue was purified by silica gel column chromatography to obtain 5.9 g (yield 82%) of (-)-5-decyloxy-2-{4-(6-hydroxy-1-trans-heptenyl)-phenyl}-pyrimidine, [α]D20 =-1.2 (c=1.0, CHCl3).
