Toyota Industries says it will discuss Toyota Group takeover bid on Tuesday

TOKYO, (Reuters) – Toyota Industries will decide on Tuesday whether to accept a tender offer to take the company private, it said, after several media reported that it would accept a $42 billion offer from Toyota Motor and other group companies.
In a separate statement, Toyota Motor also said it would make a decision on the reported plan, but added that some media reports contained misleading information including that the total acquisition could exceed 6 trillion yen ($42 billion).
Toyota Industries shares were little changed on the report, trading up 0.4% while Toyota Motor was down 1.0%.
Japanese companies have come under growing scrutiny from the market regulator and investors in recent years about their cross-shareholdings in affiliates and business partners, sparking a rise in both management buyouts and acquisitions.
Many of the deals have been driven by expectations that a corporate governance overhaul will bring better shareholder returns.
Toyota Motor had said in April it was considering participating in a potential buyout of Toyota Industries – a move that sources have said would help improve the group’s corporate governance.
Toyota owned about 24% of Toyota Industries as of September last year, while Toyota Industries held around 9% of the world’s biggest automaker and more than 5% of Denso (6902.T), opens new tab, another major Toyota supplier and Toyota group company.
Toyota Industries, formerly Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, was founded in 1926 by Sakichi Toyoda to make automatic looms. An automotive division within the company was set up and later spun off as Toyota Motor.
In addition to forklifts, Toyota Industries manufactures the RAV4 sport utility vehicle for Toyota and also produces car parts such as engines, air-conditioning compressors, batteries and converters.
($1 = 142.6500 yen)
Reporting by Adwitiya Srivastava in Bengaluru and Mariko Katsumura in Tokyo; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Chang-Ran Kim
Source: worldautoforum.com