By Lee Hyo-sik
Staff Reporter
MBK Partners, one of Korea's leading private equity funds (PEFs), has taken over management control of Universal Studios Japan (USJ), one of Asia's largest theme parks, for $1.4 billion.
The company said Tuesday that together with Wall Street-based investment bank Goldman Sachs, it has acquired a 98.3 percent stake in USJ from a number of stakeholders through offers tendered over the past month. They plan to buy up the remaining shares from minority shareholders. MBK is one of the largest PEFs here with over $3 billion in capital under management.
MBK and Goldman Sachs raised funds through a leveraged buyout, in which buyers borrow money to meet the cost of the acquisition. In many cases, the assets of the company being taken over are used as collateral for the loans.
Both companies will jointly operate the Japanese theme park and de-list it from the Tokyo Stock Exchange once they secure a 100 percent stake.
An industry executive familiar with the deal told The Korea Times that Goldman Sachs had initially held a 40 percent stake in the Japanese theme park and increased its holdings to over 61 percent.
``I think the U.S. investment bank purchased more shares in USJ amid the overall bearish stock market there. The value of the theme park will go up substantially when the economy returns to normal. Goldman will turn the Japanese firm around through vigorous restructuring and either list its shares again or sell the whole company to a third party at a higher price,'' he said.
The executive then said MBK Partners joined the USJ deal as a financial investor, securing about a 23 percent stake, and added that it is quite meaningful for the locally-grown PEF to invest in a major foreign corporation.
``We hope that the deal will raise Korea's profile on the global financial market and help the nation become a financial hub for Northeast Asia,'' MBK Partners CEO Kim Byung-joo said. Kim said USJ will soon launch a comprehensive Northeast Asian marketing campaign to attract more visitors from Korea, Taiwan and China.''
USJ is located in Osaka in the western part of Japan's main island of Honshu. It is the second largest theme park in Asia, after Disneyland Tokyo, and attracts more than nine million visitors per year.