Latest Tokyo Brief coverage on Digital Garage, Inc., tracking filings, financial news, and market signals from Japan.
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Kamgras 1's fourth price increase for Kakaku.com clears the ¥3,640 floor that holdout investor Oasis said it needed, even as Digital Garage and KDDI's combined 38% stake stays out of the tender itself under separate non-tender and buyback agreements tied to a later squeeze-out.
Kamgras has raised its tender offer for Kakaku.com to ¥3,680 a share, its fourth increase since May, and pushed the deadline back to September 29 to clear the ¥3,640 floor that shareholder Oasis said it needed to see; Kakaku.com's board is still weighing that offer against a competing Bain Capital and LINE Yahoo proposal priced at ¥3,520, or ¥3,640 if it can lock in a non-tender deal with KDDI.
A monthlong bidding contest for Kakaku.com has pushed EQT's offer to ¥3,680 a share, and Digital Garage stands to collect roughly ¥122.4bn for its 20.68 percent stake once the deal, still contingent on completion, closes.
Kamgras 1 KK nudged its Kakaku.com tender to ¥3,571 a share and stretched the deadline to September 10, but the real shift is that rival bidder BCPE Blitz Cayman's tender pact with 19.52% shareholder Oasis Management expired on August 20 after BCPE declined to raise its own price, freeing Oasis's stake for now.
The tendering pact between Oasis Management and Bain Capital's Kakaku.com bidding vehicle expired on 20 August, but Oasis says it won't tender into the rival's ¥3,570 offer unless it rises to ¥3,640 a share, a floor that keeps the vehicle's KDDI-contingent offer competitive ahead of the rival tender's close on 27 August.
Kamgras 1 has lifted its take-private bid for Kakaku.com to ¥3,570 a share, the second price increase since the ¥3,000 opener in May, and pushed the deadline to August 27; Digital Garage and KDDI are declining to tender, choosing instead a post-squeeze-out buyback, with Digital Garage alone planning to reinvest part of its proceeds into a stake in the buyer's parent.
Nomura's securities and asset-management units cut their combined Kakaku.com holding to 4.29%, clearing Japan's 5% disclosure line, the same day filings detailed how Digital Garage and KDDI plan to sit out a ¥3,000-a-share take-private tender offer and cash out afterward instead.