TOKYO: American global investment firm KKR & Co’s bid to take Yomeishu Seizo Co private has been scuttled because the Japanese herbal tonic maker’s top shareholder doesn’t intend to sell its stake.
Yomeishu said it terminated exclusive talks with KKR after determining that the proposal couldn’t succeed because of shareholder Yuzawa KK’s position.
The announcement came just half a day after Yomeishu confirmed that it had given first negotiating rights to KKR for a buyout.
Discussions will continue with Yuzawa about going private, including a potential buyout proposal from Yuzawa itself, according to Yomeishu’s filing on Tuesday evening.
Any offer would need to be higher than KKR’s valuation of 4,021 yen per Yomeishu share, the company said.
Yuzawa, which is linked to activist investor Yoshiaki Murakami, holds 27.99% of Yomeishu’s outstanding shares and its approval is necessary for any tender offer to be successful.
Yomeishu said in the filing that KKR’s tender offer was likely to be around 4,282 per yen share.
Shares of Yomeishu rose 14% to 5,480 yen per share on Tuesday, the last trading day of 2025 in Japan, after the initial news about Yomeishu being in talks with KKR.
The company’s shares have risen 118% this year, giving it a market value of about 90 billion yen (US$575mil). A KKR representative declined to comment.
A wave of corporate governance reforms in Japan has led to an increase in companies going private, and the market saw a record number of management buyouts in 2025.
Activist hedge funds are also increasingly disrupting Japanese privatisations, pushing for better protection of minority investors and driving up share prices as their pressure leads to higher bids and counteroffers.
Yomeishu’s assets include real estate and cash. It owns an 11-storey office building in a prime location in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, where its headquarters are located. — Bloomberg
