Japan's Iwatani buys stake in Cosmo Energy from Murakami funds (updated)

Cosmo Energy Holdings Co

01/12/2023 07:27

(Adds details, background)
       TOKYO, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Japanese gas company Iwatani
Corp  8088.T  on Friday said it had raised its stake in Cosmo
Energy Holdings  5021.T  to 20% by buying shares from funds
related to prominent activist shareholder Yoshiaki Murakami for
105.3 billion yen ($710.8 million).
    Iwatani already holds a 0.07% stake in Como. The price it
paid for the 19.93% stake from the funds was at an 8% premium to
Cosmo's 5,616 yen share price at Friday's closing. Iwatani plans
to buy an additional 250,000 shares, or 0.29%, subject to
regulatory approval, it said in a disclosure.
    A Cosmo spokesman declined to comment on the deal.
    Murakami's funds, which own 20% of Japan's third-biggest oil
refiner, had planned to raise their stake to nearly 25%.
    Cosmo called for a shareholder vote on Dec. 14, where it
said it would seek approval for a revised "poison pill" strategy
to block the additional fund purchases.
    In a Friday statement issued after Iwatani's announcement,
Murakami-linked fund City Index Eleventh said it has dropped the
purchases plan for Cosmo shares.
    Cosmo's chief executive Shigeru Yamada told a Reuters
interview last month that the company could struggle to win 
shareholder support, as it decided to not use a tactic known as
"a majority of minority vote", which it successfully used in a
vote in June.
($1 = 148.1400 yen)

 (Reporting by Kantaro Komiya and Yuka Obayashi; Editing by
Edmund Klamann and Miral Fahmy)
 ((Kantaro.Komiya@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @kantarokomiya;))