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Panasonic begins tender offer to take over Sanyo

Panasonic Corp said yesterday it has begun a tender offer to take over smaller rival Sanyo Electric Co for an estimated ¥402 billion (US$4.4 billion), moving closer to create one of the world’s biggest electronics makers.

Panasonic, the world’s biggest plasma TV maker, is expected to purchase more than 50 percent of Sanyo shares, hoping to take advantage of the smaller rival’s green businesses in solar panels and rechargeable batteries.

Panasonic spokesman Akira Kadota said the tender offer would be in efffect from yesterday through Dec. 7 at the price of ¥131 (US$1.40) per share.

Sanyo’s three major shareholders — Goldman Sachs, Daiwa Securities SMBC and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp — have agreed to sell at least a combined 3.07 billion shares to Panasonic at that per-share price, which guarantees the Osaka-based company to take majority stake in Sanyo.

The three shareholders together control about 70 percent of Sanyo’s total outstanding shares.

Panasonic has said earlier it hoped to purchase up to all of Sanyo’s shares, but the company is largely expected to have to settle with the minimum controlling stake, as other shareholders are unlikely to want to sell theirs, with the tender offer price now more than half of the market level.

Sanyo shares closed on Wednesday at ¥216.

Kadota said that Sanyo is expected to become Panasonic’s subsidiary by the middle of next month, a year after the two companies announced the buyout deal.

The tender offer had been delayed by several months as Panasonic had to wait for clearance from anti-monopoly authorities in the US, China and the EU to go ahead with the takeover.
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