July 26 (SeeNews) - Japan's electronics group Panasonic Corporation will make a due diligence of Slovenian home appliances maker Gorenje [LJE:GRVG] in view of potentially raising its stake in it from the current 10.74%, Gorenje said in a bourse filing late on Monday.
The statement, which suggested that Panasonic could make a bid for a controlling stake in the Velenje-based firm, lifted Gorenje's share price as much as 9.4% on the Ljubljana bourse on Tuesday.
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"On July 13th, 2016, Gorenje and Panasonic Corporation entered into a set of legal documents, which define various conditions under which Gorenje shall enable Panasonic Corporation to perform a due diligence of Gorenje Group in the time period until September 30th, 2016," the statement reads, warning that these "activities may or may not lead to Panasonic's decision to launch a bid to increase its shareholding in Gorenje" and stressing that "no decision on entering into any transaction has been made yet."
However, the parties have agreed on the strategic guidelines for the future role of Gorenje within Panasonic Group, should Panasonic obtain effective control of Gorenje, it adds.
The biggest shareholder in Gorenje is the state-owned pension fund manager Kapitalska Druzba with 16.37%, followed by the World Bank's private sector investment arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), with 11.8%, and Panasonic with 10.74%.
Gorenje shares traded at 7.2 euro ($7.9) as at 11:19 CET on Tuesday, up 9.4% from Monday's close.
($=0.9078 euro)
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