Panasonic to buy out shareholders in Indian arm, delist

05 Mar 2015

Japan's Panasonic Corp today said it plans to buy out the public equity shareholders of its Indian appliances subsidiary and delist the company.

The multinational electronics company will buy an additional 16.42-per cent stake in Panasonic Appliances India Co at Rs380 a share, raising its stake to 90.64 per cent. After this, it will apply to the stock exchanges for delisting.

The price of Rs380 was determined in a reverse book building process, the company said, adding raising the stake to 90.64 per cent will cost Rs61.35 crore.

As per regulations, Panasonic will provide an exit period of one year to the remaining shareholders, at a price of Rs380. For this, the Panasonic group would need to spend Rs34.97 crore more, provided all the shares are tendered during exit period by public shareholders.

In October 2014, the Japanese group had acquired a 16.95 per cent stake in the local co-promoter for Rs26.22 crore.

BMR Advisors acted as the adviser to Panasonic both for the buy-out of co-promoter and delisting.