By Scott Murdoch and Kane Wu
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Bain Capital is looking at formulating a bid to acquire Toshiba Corp, two people familiar with the matter said.
The Japanese conglomerate on Tuesday dismissed a $20 billion buyout offer from CVC Capital Partners as lacking substance but said it would consider any credible offers.
CVC had initially approached Bain about a joint bid before its offer was made public but Bain was not interested, one of the people said.
Bain has entered into discussions with Japanese banks including the core units of Mizuho Financial Group Inc and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group to secure funding, the person said.
It is unclear whether the firm will team up with co-investors but the sources did not exclude the possibility.
In 2017, the U.S. firm led a consortium with partners including South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix, Apple Inc to win an intense and long-fought battle to acquire Toshiba’s chip unit, now called Kioxia Holdings.
Bain’s plans for a Toshiba bid are preliminary and could change, said the sources, who declined to be identified as the information was confidential.
Bain and CVC declined to comment. Mizuho also declined to comment, while Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Both banks are lenders to Toshiba.
Toshiba said it believed that being publicly traded provided a “capital structure suitable for enhancing long term value creation” but added that its board would not disregard various proposals, including those to take the company private.
Private equity giant KKR & Co Inc and Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management are also looking at potential bids for Toshiba, the two people and a separate person familiar with the situation said.
KKR declined to comment. A Brookfield representative could not be immediately reached for comment but the company has previously declined to comment on reports of potential bid.
Toshiba shares dropped 4% on Wednesday, their fourth consecutive day of decline, but are still up 8% from April 6, a day before it was announced that the company was considering CVC’s offer.
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch and Kane Wu in Hong Kong; Additional reporting Makiko Yamazaki and Yuki Nitta in Tokyo; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Edwina Gibbs)
