Square Enix today made an official proposal to acquire Tecmo outright. The proposal was sent to Tecmo’s board as a friendly takeover bid today. The takeover bid comes just weeks after Tomonobu Itagaki, an outspoken and often-objectionable developer from Tecmo’s Team Ninja group, left the company.
The proposal acquisition must be acted upon in one form or another by Tecmo’s board “no later than September 4.”
Square’s proposal covered the basic conditions of acquisition of shares of Tecmo’s common stock. Unlike recent attempts by Electronic Arts to take over Take-Two Interactive, Square’s acquisition proposal went directly to Tecmo’s board, not its shareholders.
The major points of Square’s takeover proposal for Tecmo include:
- Takeover Bid Price: 920 yen per share, which adds a premium of 30%+ to Tecmo’s closing stock price as of August 28 (706 yen).
- Square will acquire more than half of the outstanding Tecmo shares on a fully-diluted basis (including residual shares subject to stock options).
- Deadline to reply to the proposal: Sept. 4 (Thursday). If Square receives no response from Tecmo by the deadline or fails to obtain consent by Tecmo’s board to pursue the takeover, Square will withdraw the proposal completely.