Just days after Hoya Corp. made a hostile takeover bid for one of Toshiba Corp.'s publicly traded units — an extremely rare move in Japan — the industrial giant is responding with equally unusual bluntness.
"Basically, I'm not selling," Toshiba Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Nobuaki Kurumatani said in an interview. "Price is not the issue — it's life or death for" NuFlare Technology Inc., the company at the center of the tug-of-war, said Kurumatani, suggesting that the subsidiary wouldn't be able to survive outside of Toshiba's group.
Hoya offered to spend as much as ¥148 billion ($1.35 billion) for NuFlare, seeking a minimum of 66.7 percent of the chip-equipment manufacturer. Its tender offer of ¥12,900 a share trumped Toshiba's own earlier bid to buy out public shareholders at ¥11,900 a share. Hoya said it hadn't discussed the bid with NuFlare and Toshiba for fear of the information leaking out and driving up the price.