Comments on: Japan High Court Rules Against Saucy Gaijins

By: Japan’s Best Hamburger | Burgerschreck

Japan’s Best Hamburger | Burgerschreck — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 15:17:38 +0000

[...] was sitting in a little plastic cup next to the mayonnaise as if it had just been squeezed out of a bulldog sauce bottle. To top it all off, the sauce was cold, there wasn’t a lot of it and it certainly didn’t [...]

By: More on Steel Partners and Bull Dog from Stippy and Japan Inc. : Japan Economy News & Blog

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 14:16:21 +0000

[...] first, let’s look at the Stippy article, which is titled “Japan High Court Rules Against Saucy Gaijins“. The author starts by giving us some background information and then, concerning the Tokyo [...]

By: Wayne

Wayne — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:32:21 +0000

All one needs to do is look at Steal (it’s how it should be spelled) Partners history. This person started in the US, he would take over a company bleed it of all it’s assets then dump it. Other stock holders were hurt, employees were hurt. This guy made money. it’s all he cares about. someone said that he didn’t have experience managing a company, that’s very true. I think the Japanese courts defined steel partners correctly.

By: steve88

steve88 — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 06:01:49 +0000

SP ended up with acceptance of the TOB by 1.89% of Bulldog shareholders. Shocker.

By: steve88

steve88 — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 01:39:45 +0000

The Steel Partners TOB of Bulldog Sauce finished today, with them not getting enough support. Fizzle fizzle fizzle.

By: soteiguy

soteiguy — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 02:24:55 +0000

I was watching the commentary here with a bit of skepticism here because the stock was trading so much higher than Steel’s bid. I thought it was just for the publicity. But it is amazing how efficient markets are. Look at the stock today, it’s trading down to 460 yen. Wouldn’t it be funny if it continued to fall and Steel “got lucky” and bought the whole company.

By: steve88

steve88 — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:46:50 +0000

SPs original stake of 9.3% has fallen to 2.3%.

That means that instead of buying 90.7% of the company they are now trying to buy 97.7% of the company. Because they have reduced the TOB price by a factor of four to make up for the extra shares outstanding, it really means that their cash-out is only 7.7% higher than they had expected. I’m sure Steel doesn’t give a shit if they have to pay 7.7% more in the whole scheme of things.

Given that they’ve used their takeover defense once, it is unlikely that they can do it again so Steel should be successful this time. That said, 90% of shareholders did tell Steel to f&ck off so they probably won’t tender which means Steel are wasting their time but who cares – it’s all good press.

By: Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 01:29:06 +0000

So the poison pill basically didn't work at all then?

It's pretty clever by SP because when you think of it, all they ever owned anyway
was 10% of the company. The price that they would have paid for the remaining 90% is the same as what they will pay going forward (they buy 4x more shares but they cut the price by 1/4), the only "increased" payment they have to deal with is for the 10% that they didn't own (which they end up paying 4 times the original price for).

Works out not very much different from where they started. Although one significant difference is that Bulldog has announce that they are to lose over $10mil this year, which is massively down from $5mil profit last year.

By: Bone

Bone — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:00:45 +0000

Update on Japan Supreme Court Ruling Against Steel Partners

The Supreme court ruled yesterday to uphold the pleas for help of Bulldog Sauce, and threw out the appeal by Steel Partners, confirming again the legality of the poison pill in Japan. The ruling this time from the judge was more logical, stating that if thats what 80% of the shareholders of the company voted for, then it should be in the interest of the company.

In a surprise announcement however, Steel Partners has decided to continue with their TOB. This is despite the fact that their shareholding has been diluted to 1/4 of what it was before the poison pill. They have also dropped their TOB price to 1/4 of the original price accordingly.

Two questions remain:
1. If 80% of shareholders have already voted for the poison pill, ie against SP, what makes them think it will go any better this time?
2. What was so attractive about Bulldog sauce to begin with?

By: Hills-zoku

Hills-zoku — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 01:03:05 +0000

Well it looks like Steel’s appeal was turned over by the high court. I guess it is back to happy days for the management of the sauce.