Citi makes final $14 billion offer for Nikko

Our Corporate Bureau
16 March 2007

Mumbai: Citigroup has prepared a $14 billion final bid for Japan's Nikko Cordial even as shares gained in volatile trading.

The latest bid for a possible takeover deal at $14 billion would be the biggest-ever foreign buyout of a Japanese firm, and while Nikko's management has accepted the deal, Citi will take tender offers for 30 trading days.

Shares in Japan's Nikko Cordial Corp. fell 0.3 per cent after Citigroup said it would not sweeten its $14 billion takeover bid for the brokerage a second time.

Citigroup, which is focusing on expanding its international business, began accepting tenders on Thursday. Nikko's shares had surged after the US bank raised its offer price by 26 per cent earlier in the week, but Citigroup's chief executive for Japan, Douglas Peterson, said on Wednesday that the new offer was final.

"Our price is full and it's fair and it's firm," Douglas told a news conference. "It will not be raised."

Nikko's stock rose ¥9 to within a yen of Citigroup's ¥1,700 offer price immediately after the start of morning trade, but closed lower at ¥1,685 yen.