Portfolio Update

RNS Number : 5345J

Nippon Active Value Fund PLC

27 April 2022

 

Update on portfolio holding

Nippon Active Value Fund notes Rising Sun Management increased buyout offer for Intage Holdings

London / Tokyo, 27 April 2022:   Nippon Active Value Fund plc (NAVF) notes the following announcement being made by Rising Sun Management ("RSM"):

RSM has increased its offer to acquire 100% of Japanese marketing research firm Intage Holdings (Bloomberg Ticker: "4326 JP Equity") to Yen 1950 per share, having previously offered Yen 1900 in February 2022. The offer, which is being made through RSM's Japanese vehicle Hikari Acquisition KK and is for the 89.83% of common stock not already controlled by the Investor Group it represents, would value Intage at approximately Yen 78.8 billion.

RSM's new offer was made in a letter available here . It notes that RSM is "surprised and saddened" not to have heard from Intage since its previous offer dated 7^th February 2022. In January 2022, RSM sent a letter to Intage Holdings urging that it undertake immediate preparations to organise a management buyout citing several areas of concern with how Intage is managed. They include:

· Lack of widely held stock incentives for management and employees

· An unsuitably expansionist acquisition policy lacking sufficient financial returns

· Slow progress in digitising operations and low levels of automation in the business generally

The Investor Group acts as an activist investor drawing on the RSM team's significant Japanese market knowledge and their previous success in generating uncorrelated returns. RSM seeks to engage with investee company managements to promote corporate reorganisation and capital allocation strategies designed to produce significantly better alignment between all stakeholders, including management, employees and shareholders, thus leading to improved returns.

-ENDS-

NOTES TO EDITORS

About NAVF

Nippon Active Value Fund ("NAVF") is an Investment Trust listed on the Specialist Fund Segment of the London Stock Exchange. The investment advisor of the Fund is Rising Sun Management Limited. NAVF is targeting attractive levels of capital growth for shareholders from the active management of a focused portfolio of quoted small cap Japanese equity investments. The investment advisor, Rising Sun Management Limited, targets companies which are attractive, undervalued and have a substantial proportion of their market capitalisation held in cash and/or listed securities and/or realisable assets.

Media Enquiries: 

Bill McIntosh

[e-mail]  

Peregrine Communications

[phone]

Alex Gorokhov

[e-mail]  

Peregrine Communications

[phone]

 

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