Shanghai Daily: Business - shanghaidaily.com
ADVANTAGE Partners LLC, Japan's largest buyout fund, offered to buy Tokyo Star Bank Ltd for as much as 252 billion yen (US$2.2 billion) in the nation's biggest bank takeover in two years. Advantage agreed to buy Dallas-based Lone Star Funds' 68 percent stake in the bank for 360,000 yen a share, it said in a statement on its Website, Bloomberg News said. It offered to buy the remainder of the bank's traded stock at the same price. Tokyo Star shares closed at 352,000 yen yesterday. The acquisition gives Advantage 35 branches and 1.5 trillion yen of deposits, with a niche in lending to small companies in Japan's capital. Tokyo Star has dropped 16 percent since talks between the two were first reported in May, as investors dumped Japanese banking stocks amid sluggish loan growth and losses on mortgage-related investments. "Advantage found value in the deal after Japanese financial institutions were sold down to very attractive levels," said Yoji Takeda, who helps manage