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| A building in downtown Seoul where MBK Partners' Seoul office is located / Newsis |
By Anna J. Park
MBK Partners has participated in a joint bid to acquire Toshiba, forming a consortium with the state-backed Japan Investment Corporation (JIC) and U.S.-based Bain Capital to carry out the buyout of the Japanese-headquartered multinational conglomerate.
According to the investment banking industry, the largest private equity firm in Northeast Asia partnered with JIC and Bain Capital to create a consortium, which submitted the second-round bid to acquire Toshiba at the end of last month.
Besides the consortium, CVC Capital Partners, Brookfield Asset Management and Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) are the other potential bidders for the acquisition.
Since Toshiba began its sales process in April, several bids were submitted during the initial bid round in June, including bids from MBK Partners, KKR, Blackstone, Baring Private Equity Asia and Brookfield Asset Management. Failing to be the preferred bidder during the initial round, MBK Partners is said to have teamed up with JIC and Bain Capital to join the main bidding round.
In 2018, Bain Capital led a consortium to pursue an $18 billion acquisition of Toshiba's memory chip business, the world's second-largest producer of NAND chips. Korean chipmaker SK hynix, Apple, Dell Technologies, Seagate Technology and Kingston Technology joined the consortium.
What is different this time around from the 2018 memory chip unit sale is that it will require the Japanese government's final approval, as the Japanese conglomerate's sensitive nuclear power business, which is categorized as a company of interest for Japan's national security, is also included in this deal.
MBK Partners remained tight-lipped on the issue, as it declined to comment on the deal during a phone call with The Korea Times on Monday. Given that Toshiba's corporate value is estimated at around 28 trillion won ($20 billion), the acquisition deal is expected to be the largest buyout deal ever in Japan, if completed.
Earlier in the year, MBK Partners' Founder and Chairman Michael Byung-ju Kim stressed the need to make proactive investment decisions without fear in times of recession. In his annual message sent to key institutional investors, he stated that the door for investment opportunities opens wider during a recession.
