SoftBank and Naver will take Line Corp. private through a squeeze out after concluding a tender offer on 15 September, Bloomberg reports. Back in August, SoftBank and Naver decided to launch a tender offer in Japan, to acquire the common shares of Line Corporation, and had been conducting the tender offer since 4 August.
SoftBank said the tender offer did not set an upper limit on the number of shares to be purchased, so the number of shares to be purchased was 88.30 million shares.
The tender offer was completed on 15 September. SoftBank says 31.2 million shares, including 1.09 million share certificates, were tendered in a joint bid launched with Naver as part of a plan to take Line private. The aggregate purchase price for the Japan and US tender offers is approximately JPY 168 billion, and the breakdown thereof for each tender offeror is JPY 84 billion for SoftBank, and JPY 84 billion for Naver.
