Latest Tokyo Brief coverage on GungHo Online Entertainment, Inc., tracking filings, financial news, and market signals from Japan.
TSE:3765
Strategic Capital, holding an unchanged 13.67% of GungHo Online Entertainment, lists a third-party buyout, a dividend increase, a treasury-share buyback from specific shareholders with resale to Sony Music Entertainment, and board changes if the company stays listed.
Sony Music Entertainment has agreed to buy all 12.01 million GungHo Online Entertainment shares held by SON Financial, paying ¥28.6bn in cash, with a December 30 closing target and new consent rights over the game maker's share issuance in the meantime.
A 120,065-vote block, all of it currently with SON Financial, is due to move to Sony Music Entertainment on December 30, alongside a capital alliance that gives the buyer consent rights over GungHo's future share issuance.
Sony Music Entertainment will buy a 23.29% voting stake in GungHo Online Entertainment for ¥28.6bn from asset manager SON Financial, taking over as the mobile-game maker's largest shareholder, with veto rights limited to share moves that would dilute its stake below 22.65% before the deal closes in December.
Strategic Capital, holding 13.67% of GungHo Online Entertainment, says it will demand the removal of either the company's representative director or its chairman if the game maker stays listed instead of delisting through a takeover.
An amended EDINET filing shows Strategic Capital has raised its GungHo Online Entertainment position to 13.67% from 10.51%, funded almost entirely with borrowed money, while renewing its call for buybacks from shares linked to Taizo Son.