US investment fund offers to take over Japanese heating firm

Afp, Tokyo


US investment fund Steel Partners on Thursday made an offer to take over leading Japanese heating company Noritz Corp., its latest target in a country that frowns on unsolicited bids.

Steel Partners, the biggest shareholder in the company with an 18.7 percent stake, said it sought at least 50.1 percent of the firm's hares on a voluntary basis. Noritz's total share value is 52 billion yen (484 million dollars).

The fund made the offer "as a last resort" due to Noritz's failure to meet its operating profit plans and as the Japanese firm's shares have fallen some 35 percent since last year, Steel Partners said in a statement.

Noritz has "not given us any reason to believe that they are taking appropriate steps to ensure that such deterioration will not continue well into the future," Steel Partners head Warren Lichtenstein wrote in a letter.

"It has become clear to us that management ... does not understand the need to immediately implement appropriate changes. The status quo is not acceptable," he added.