Bain Capital raises offer for Fuji Soft, outbidding KKR by 1.6 pct

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By Anton Bridge

TOKYO (Reuters) -U.S. private equity firm Bain Capital will raise its offer price for Japan’s Fuji Soft by around 1.6%, it said on Wednesday, trumping a recently increased tender offer bid from rival KKR.

Bain’s increased offer price, at 9,600 yen ($62.88) a share, marks the latest salvo in the running battle between the two private equity giants over the $4 billion software maker.

KKR had initially bid 8,800 yen per share in August but raised this to 9,451 in response to an earlier Bain bid of 9,450 per share.

The bidding war illustrates Japan’s growing prominence as a hot spot for deals, as rising demand from private equity firms stokes competition.

Bain has said it will only launch its bid after obtaining company support, which it has not yet received.

Rival KKR split its tender offer into a two-part process which allowed it to first acquire around 34% – enough to block a Bain privatisation – before it acquired a majority stake.

Fuji Soft’s management then came out in support of KKR and rejected Bain’s bid last month after the completion of KKR’s first round, arguing the latter bid would not be viable as KKR could now block it.

Fuji Soft’s management then also demanded that Bain refrain from making a higher offer and destroy the confidential company information it had compiled during due diligence.

Bain said this disregarded the interests of shareholders and would like to continue using that information to launch the tender offer as soon as possible.

In the first 10 months of this year, Japan saw a record $81 billion in inbound M&A, up 17-fold from the same period last year, LSEG data shows. 

KKR increased its tender offer price to 9,451 yen per share last month, up from its original bid of 8,800 yen.

($1 = 151.5400 yen)

(Reporting by Anton Bridge and Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim, Jamie Freed and Louise Heavens)