Cerberus Capital Management, the American private equity forum, is seeking to increase its stake in Seibu Holdings, the Japanese railway and property group. The projected increase would be at least 4% with Seibu planning to relist its shares.
Cerberus has already paid 100 billion yen or US$1.04 billion to make the biggest shareholder for Seibu and shares would be bought from other owners via public tender. The fund firm is seeking to have greater control over the firm from 32.4% to 36.44% according to the statement. It does not however intend to take over the operations but merely to improve corporate governance.
Back in 2005, Cerberus had led the bailout of Seibu. The firm operates not only department stores and hotel chains and was the new company after Seibu Railway was delisted for making a false entry in its securities report.
There have been clashes between Cerberus and Seibu management over the multi-billion dollar stock market listing planned for 2012 according to Reuters sources.
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