TOKYO, July 2 (Reuters) – SoftBank’s LY Corp and Bain Capital have again raised their bid for Kakaku.com, valuing the Japanese price-comparison website operator at 670 billion yen ($4.12 billion) and widening the gap over a rival offer from Sweden’s EQT.
In the legally binding offer unveiled late on Wednesday, LY and Bain said they would raise their bid for all outstanding Kakaku.com shares to 3,384 yen apiece from 3,232 yen each proposed in May.
Following the new proposal, Kakaku.com said in a statement on Thursday that it would pursue discussions with EQT over its offer price, currently at 3,000 yen a share, while maintaining its support for the Swedish investment firm’s bid.
It withdrew its shareholder recommendation to support the EQT bid, changing its stance to “neutral,” adding that it would engage in talks with both bidders.
M&A activity has surged in Japan in response to changes in governance that have encouraged more firms to go private. Private equity firms have spearheaded a number of deals, and last year KKR and Bain battled to take private Fuji Soft, a software developer. KKR ultimately prevailed in that faceoff.
LY and Bain said their offer would increase to 3,500 yen a share if KDDI Corp, one of Kakaku.com’s largest shareholders, agreed to support the bid.
EQT said in May, following the initial announcement of the rival bid, that it was confident in the attractiveness of its offer. EQT did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Kakaku operates a range of online businesses including price-comparison website Kakaku.com, restaurant review and reservation platform Tabelog and job-search service Kyujin Box.
Bain and LY said they could improve the profitability of Kakaku’s businesses by injecting capital, providing management support and aligning with LY’s existing businesses, which include the Line messaging app and Yahoo Japan.
LY and Bain said that they would not launch their offer unless they received an opinion in support from Kakaku.
($1 = 162.4900 yen)
(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim and Anton Bridge; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Thomas Derpinghaus)
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