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MBK Partners, a private equity fund company headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, has entered the bid to acquire Toshiba Corp., a conglomerate based in Minato, Tokyo.
According to Pulse News, foreign media outlets reported that the investment banking industry stated not long ago that MBK Partners forwarded a letter of intent to Toshiba. With this, the PEF firm has officially joined 10 other major companies that are bidding to take over the Japanese firm.
It was said that MBK Partners is aggressively pursuing the acquisition by taking advantage of its 10-year investment experience in Japan. Moreover, the company is confident as it has $25.6 billion worth of assets under its management.
The Korean PEF company sold the largest golf course chain operator called Accordia Next Golf last year, and the buyer was the Fortress Investment Group LLC under SoftBank Group. The property was sold for $3.5 billion, and it was said to be the largest deal in the merger and acquisition (M&A) sector in Korea, Japan, and China at that time.
With this sale, MBK Partners was able to gain more than five times the original price of Accordia Next Golf when the company bought it for KRW800 billion or around $644.4 million in 2017. Last year, the company also invested around $4 billion for all the 13 deals it closed.
For its bid on Toshiba, MBK Partners is expected to form a consortium with its foreign partners to raise the KRW10 trillion funds needed for the acquisition. Now, as MBK joins the race for the takeover of one of Japan’s most iconic companies, the bidding got heated up even more.
It was noted that although Toshiba is struggling financially, many firms are still very much interested in buying it. This is because most of the investors think that Toshiba’s problems could be solved, and it still has great potential for growth.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Toshiba received 10 proposals for the buyout, and eight of them expressed intention to make the company private. The company will assess the financing arrangements and the feasibility of the proposals to pick which investors could be given due diligence opportunities. Some of the bidders aside from MBK Partners include KKR & Co Inc., Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., and Bain Capital.
