(Reuters) -Japan’s Tsuruha Holdings Inc is considering selling the entire company for about $4 billion or even more, after a proxy battle with activist investor Oasis Management, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The drug store chain operator is working with an adviser on the potential transaction and has contacted some private equity firms to gauge their interest, the report said, adding that it was looking to receive non-binding bids from potential investors as soon as next week.
After the market close on Wednesday, Tsuruha said in a statement that the company was looking into various ways to boost corporate value, and it would make an announcement if something that should be disclosed has been decided.
Tsuruha won a proxy battle in August against shareholder Oasis Management, which was seeking to reshuffle the board of directors.
Tsuruha’s shareholders had approved of 10 candidates nominated by the company and rejected five outside director nominees backed by the investor.
Oasis had argued that the current board dominated by founding family members could impede the company from fairly evaluating consolidation opportunities.
Tsuruha’s shares surged 19.6% to 12,770 yen on Wednesday, their highest close in nearly two years, far outperforming the Nikkei average’s 2.5% gain.
(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru, and Kaori Kaneko and Mariko Katsumura in Tokyo; Editing by Janane Venkatraman, Rashmi Aich and Kim Coghill)
