Japan’s Tsuruha Holdings Inc is exploring selling the entire company for about $4 billion or even more, after a proxy battle with activist investor Oasis Management, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Tsuruha is working with an adviser on the potential transaction and has reached out to some private equity firms to gauge their interest, the report said, adding that it was looking to collect non-binding bids from potential investors as soon as next week.
The company won a proxy battle in August against shareholder Oasis Management, which was seeking to reshuffle the board of directors. Tsuruha’s shareholders had approved of 10 candidates nominated by the company and rejected five outside director nominees backed by the investor.
Oasis had argued that the current board dominated by founding family members could impede the company from fairly evaluating consolidation opportunities.
Officials from Tsurauha, which had a market capital of about 523.8 billion yen as of Tuesday’s close, were not immediately available for comment.
Tsuruha’s shares surged 19% to 12,720 yen by early afternoon, their highest intraday level in two years. The Tokyo Stock Exchange issued an alert, warning investors with “unclear information regarding going private”.
Reuters