Hikari Tsushin's 17.70% Leopalace21 Stake Sits Out K891's Tender Offer, Backs Later Squeeze-Out

Hikari Tsushin, the Tokyo-based investment group, and UH Partners 2 have told Japan's Kanto Local Finance Bureau that they will keep their entire combined stake in Leopalace21 out of a tender offer from K891, and have signed up to a sequence of steps designed to leave K891 as the company's sole shareholder once the process runs its course.

The disclosure came in Change Report No. 4, filed on September 24, 2026 and triggered by an agreement the two firms struck on September 14 with K891, the entity making the tender offer for Leopalace21 (Tokyo Stock Exchange, ticker 8848). That offer runs from September 15 to October 30, 2026, and it has not concluded.

Under the September 14 agreement, Hikari Tsushin, an affiliated investment partnership called Hikari Tsushin KK LPS, and a second partnership, UH Partners 2 LPS, all commit not to tender any Leopalace21 shares they hold into the K891 offer. Part of the shares held by the two limited partnerships will then move, through an in-kind distribution, to Hikari Tsushin itself and to a separate party to the agreement, HIKARI TSUSHIN INVESTMENTS OKINAWA (HTIO).

The more consequential commitment is conditional. If an extraordinary shareholders' meeting is convened after the tender offer succeeds, the parties agree to vote in favor of a share consolidation designed to leave only K891 and HTIO as Leopalace21 shareholders. HTIO then commits to sell all of its resulting shares into a buyback that Leopalace21 would carry out after that consolidation. None of those later steps has happened, and the voting commitment only takes effect if the tender offer is completed and a meeting is actually called.

The joint stake behind these commitments is 59,188,200 shares, or 17.70% of Leopalace21's 334,415,678 shares outstanding. That 17.70% joint percentage matches the filers' prior report.

Hikari Tsushin separately disclosed that it funded its holding with ¥1.53bn of its own money, with no borrowed funds. Both filers describe their holding purpose as pure investment.