TOKYO (Nikkei)--Taiwan's Chinatrust Commercial Bank presented an
official proposal to acquire Tokyo Star Bank to shareholders of the
embattled midtier bank on Thursday, The Nikkei reported in its
Friday morning edition.
Most of the shareholders, which include U.S. equity firm Lone
Star Funds, Shinsei Bank (8303.TO) and France's Credit Agricole
group, are believed to have indicated their support for the
bid.
The acquisition price will not be finalized until due diligence
is completed, but the proposal puts the price tag for almost all
shares in Tokyo Star Bank at roughly Y50 billion.
Pending a final agreement with shareholders, the deal will be
reviewed by the Financial Services Agency. Once this hurdle is
cleared, Chinatrust will become the first foreign bank to acquire a
Japanese bank. Previous foreign takeovers of Japanese banks mainly
involved investment funds, such as Cerberus Group and Ripplewood
Holdings LLC -- now RHJ International.
Tokyo Star Bank, whose branch network covers such major cities
as Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka, traces its origins to Tokyo Sowa
Bank, which went belly up in 1999. The bank was acquired by a
Japanese investment fund via a special purpose company in 2008.
This fund ran into a problem paying back loans from Lone Star
Funds, Shinsei Bank and others following the Lehman shock. This led
to these lenders coming into possession of Tokyo Star Bank
shares.
Holding more than Y4 trillion in deposits, Chinatrust is one of
the biggest commercial banks in Taiwan. It has overseas branches in
Japan, mainland China, India and other Asian countries.