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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According to Matej Simnic, an analyst at Slovenia's ALTA Invest, Panasonic has been expected to increase its shareholding and eventually fully acquire Gorenje ever since it entered the company three years ago. However, the takeover process was seen to be more gradual and to stretch over a longer time period, he explained.
"The latest announcement suggests this process could be much faster," Simnic noted, but warned that the acquisition is still a speculation.
Simnic judged that due to low liquidity the news could substantially affect stock price movements in the days to come. However, he added that it is impossible to predict how far investors will push Gorenje’s stock price due to the takeover expectations.
On Monday, Gorenje announced that on July 13, it entered into a set of legal documents with Panasonic, which define various conditions under which Panasonic will perform a due diligence of Gorenje in the time period until September 30.
The company warned that these "activities may or may not lead to Panasonic's decision to launch a bid to increase its shareholding in Gorenje" and stressed 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 added.
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's market capitalisation presently stands at 171.7 million euro ($188.9 million).
Gorenje shares closed at 7.03 euro on Tuesday, up 6.8% from Monday's close, in a turnover of 213,000 euro. The stock price hit an intra-day high of 7.2 euro.
($=0.9088 euro)
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