Mitsui Fudosan to acquire Tokyo Dome for $1.2 billion in white-knight bid
08 Dec 2020
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The board of Tokyo Dome Corporation has approved a $1.2 billion tender offer for the company’s by property developer Mitsui Fudosan Co Ltd and has recommended that the shareholders of the company tender their shares in the tender offer.
Mitsui Fudosan Co last week said it would pay $1.2 billion to buy Tokyo Dome Corp’s common stock, which would help the company fend off prominent activist fund Oasis Management.
Mitsui Fudosan will pay 1,300 yen per Tokyo Dome stock or 120.5 billion yen ($1.2 billion) in the tender offer. The offer represents a 45 per cent premium to Thursday’s closing price.
Tokyo Dome, which owns the home stadium of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team, has been under pressure from Hong Kong-based Oasis. The fund has called for the removal of board members, including Tokyo Dome’s president, and a change in operations.
Mitsui Fudosan said it would pay 120.5 billion yen ($1.2 billion) in a tender offer for Tokyo Dome. The offer price of 1,300 yen per share represents a 45 per cent premium to Thursday’s closing price.
The tender offer proposes to acquire all of the Tokyo Dome’s stock which is listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (excluding the treasury shares held by the company) with the aim of making the company a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsui Fudosan.
Upon completion of making the company a wholly-owned subsidiary, 20 per cent of the company stock so acquired will be transferred to The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings,the owner of the Tokyo Giants baseball team, after the deal is completed to boost competitiveness in an expected synergy.
Tokyo Dome, which owns the home stadium of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team, has been under pressure from Hong Kong-based fund Oasis Management for the removal of board members, including Tokyo Dome’s president, and a change in operations.
Oasis Management has called for a special shareholders’ meeting to remove three board members, including President Tsutomu Nagaoka, and in January told Tokyo Dome that it intended to buy all stakes at 1,300 yen per share, the same price offered by Mitsui Fudosan.
Tokyo Dome’s operations which include a ballpark, theme park and hotel business has been hit by the pandemic, and it reported a 9.8 billion yen net loss in the six months through July. The fund has argued that Tokyo Dome was not making the best use of the properties.
“The proposal by Oasis would not result in an increase of corporate value”, Tokyo Dome said in a statement. The company is due to hold an extraordinary shareholder meeting on 17 December.
