Toshiba Corp said it received eight offers to buy out the conglomerate, as well as two proposals for capital and business alliances, as the Japanese industrial giant moved a step closer to a possible privatization.
The Tokyo-based company yesterday outlined the number of nonbinding offers received in a statement, without disclosing the bidders. It would evaluate the proposals, and choose one or more of them to pursue as soon as possible after the annual shareholders’ meeting scheduled for June 28.
Toshiba’s shares rose as much as 1.9 percent in Tokyo.
Photo: AFP
Toshiba last month said that it signed confidentiality agreements with 10 potential investors as part of its process to solicit proposals on privatization and strategic alternatives. The firm has been looking at other options after shareholders voted down a plan put forward by management to split the company in two.
Last week, Toshiba nominated a mergers and acquisitions veteran to chair its board, and picked two executives from its activist shareholders among its slate of director candidates, which would be voted on at the annual general meeting and then decide on the buyout offers.
Former Toshiba CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa, who opposed going private, would step down from the board.
Private equity investors including CVC Capital Partners, Blackstone Inc and Bain Capital were considering making bids. State-backed investment fund Japan Investment Corp was also mulling an offer, Bloomberg reported last month.
Toshiba would provide selected bidders with the opportunity to do due diligence from next month and ask them to submit legally binding proposals, it said in the statement.
Toshiba has been locked in a conflict with its shareholders over the future of the conglomerate, whose businesses range from semiconductors and quantum computing to nuclear power plants. Activist investors have been calling for the company to go private, a path that Toshiba’s management had been resisting before its proposal to split in two was voted down.
Analysts have said that the nuclear business, which is deemed important to Japan’s national security, is a major obstacle to any privatization.
A buyout of Toshiba, which has a market value of more than US$19 billion, could be private equity’s biggest ever deal in the country.
Separately on Thursday, Toshiba announced its management policy for the group, including a target of net sales of ￥5 trillion (US$38.5 billion) and ￥600 billion in operating income in fiscal 2030.
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