Bain-led consortium to buy Hitachi Metals for $7.5 billion

TOKYO (Reuters) -A consortium led by global private equity firm Bain Capital will buy all the shares of Hitachi Metals Ltd for 817 billion yen ($7.5 billion), Hitachi Ltd’s metals subsidiary said on Wednesday.

For Hitachi, which currently owns 53% of Hitachi Metals, the deal is the latest divestiture in a decade-long business overhaul to pivot the business from electronics hardware to digital services.

The Bain-led consortium, which includes two Japanese funds, will offer 2,181 yen per share to buy the 47% of Hitachi Metals not owned by Hitachi at a premium of 15.8% to Tuesday’s closing price. It will spend a further 382 billion yen acquiring Hitachi’s 53% stake.

Hitachi Metals will be delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Hitachi is expecting to book extraordinary profit of 328 billion yen in the current financial year, it said in a separate statement.

Hitachi has sought buyers since last year for the business which has posted net losses for two consecutive years in a deteriorating business environment.

In recent years it has also sold chemical unit Hitachi Chemical Co to Showa Denko and diagnostic imaging business to Fujifilm Holdings Corp.

($1 = 108.9800 yen)

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