EQT Raises Kakaku.com Tender Offer to 3,570 Yen, Countering LINE Yahoo Camp

Plenty of people in Taiwan check Tabelog before booking dinner in Japan. Fewer realise its parent company is being fought over. Swedish private equity firm EQT has raised its tender offer for Kakaku.com again, to 3,570 yen per share, against a LINE Yahoo-led camp. Two increases in short order say both sides think this asset cannot be conceded.

A tender offer has to clear the market price to pull shares out of existing holders' hands, and shareholders decide whether it succeeds. When the price is pushed twice, someone else is bidding — and at that point the buyer is paying for strategic position, not return on investment.

What is being bought is not revenue. Kakaku.com holds accumulated price-comparison and restaurant-review behaviour data, plus the entry point where consumers stand just before deciding. Whoever holds that position decides which restaurant gets seen — an existential matter for every business downstream.

This is also not an isolated case. Foreign funds have been working through Japanese domestic names with steady cash flow, firm market positions and long-depressed valuations, helped by governance reform that makes silent refusal harder for boards.

Three outcomes: EQT secures the shares and repricing follows; the domestic camp bids again and carries the cost; or the standoff drags and the product stagnates.

For readers: look for the unnamed companies fitting the same profile rather than chasing this one, and stop concentrating marketing spend on a platform whose owner is changing.