(Bloomberg) -- Bain Capital is increasing its offer for Fuji Soft Inc. with a bid that values the Japanese software company at $4.3 billion, extending a rare battle with KKR & Co. in the country’s booming buyout market.
The Boston-based investment firm plans to pay ¥9,600 a share for Fuji Soft, it said in a statement on Wednesday. That’s 1.6% higher than KKR’s offer of ¥9,451 and values the company at around ¥647 billion ($4.3 billion).
The development comes less than two weeks before KKR’s tender offer for Fuji Soft is set to end on Dec. 19, and it’s not clear how Bain’s last-minute bid would impact the transaction. Any rival offer would likely need cooperation from KKR, which has already secured more than one-third of shares in Fuji Soft following an earlier tender offer that was accepted by investors 3D Investment Partners and Farallon Capital Management.
Bain said the new offer is contingent on the support of Fuji Soft’s board of directors, underscoring how private equity firms have avoided making hostile bids in a market that is gradually becoming more receptive to buyouts. It aims to launch the bid as soon as January.
The move shows how fast the private equity landscape is changing in Japan, as a weaker yen and regulators’ promotion of corporate governance boost opportunities to buy up high-quality Japanese businesses at cheap valuations. Global investment giants have been encouraged by reforms that have made companies more receptive to change, whether by going private or selling off non-core businesses.
Shares of Fuji Soft closed 1.4% higher at ¥9,663 after the Nikkei earlier reported Bain’s latest proposal. The stock has jumped 64% this year. Citigroup Inc. analysts last month set a target price of ¥10,000 for the Yokohama-based company.
The Fuji Soft saga started in August, when KKR offered to take the company private at ¥8,800 per share, valuing it at almost $4 billion. Weeks later, Bain announced a rival public bid that was 7% higher. The deal appeared to be in limbo until late November, when KKR raised its offer price to 1 yen per share higher than Bain’s, winning the support of Fuji Soft’s board and the rejection of Bain’s first rival bid.
Fuji Soft has flagged concerns about a deadlock if both KKR and Bain acquired major stakes in the information technology firm. After the board had rejected Bain’s earlier offer, a company special committee recommended that it ask the investment firm to destroy confidential information it had to prepare for its bid.
Bain said in its statement on Wednesday that it would like to continue accessing the information because the offer is beneficial to shareholders.
--With assistance from Takako Taniguchi.
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