Namco to be Acquired by Bandai in Joint Holding Company

Namco to be Acquired by Bandai in Joint Holding Company

Namco yesterday announced plans to establish a joint holding company with Japanese toy developer, Bandai, in a move to make both companies stronger competitors in the global market. Namco Bandai Holdings Inc. will be established on 29 September 2005 in a $1.63bn deal that will see Bandai acquiring a 57% stake of the company with Namco holding the remaining 43%. Bandai is best known for developing the Power Ranger toys as well as Mobile Suit Gundam, Digimon and Ultraman characters. When the companies integrate, Namco will receive one share of common stock of the holding company for each share of its common stock and Bandai will receive one and a half shares of common stock of the holding company for each share of its common stock. According to Reuters, Bandai's stock sagged 2.51 percent on the news, while shares of Namco surged 8.89 percent.

Namco Bandai Holdings will combine Bandai's strengths in character merchandising and Namco's wide network of amusement facilities and strengths in game development to develop synergies in the entertainment industry. According to Namco, the integration has been prompted by the declining birth rates in Japan which led to a decline in the number of children and therefore diversified hobbies and interests in Japan meaning aggressive research and development needs to be conducted in order to provide more attractive products and services. Namco said, "To succeed in this changing and intensely competitive market, further expand and develop our businesses and increase our enterprise values, we have determined it best for Namco and Bandai to integrate our management and selectively focus and concentrate our management resources under common philosophies and strategies." Once integrated, it is projected Namco Bandai Holdings will produce and sell characters originating from Namco's game software, strengthen Namco's amusement store network as well as develop more attractive game software for home use on multiple platforms using Bandai's know-how for character merchandising and Namco's technology development capabilities.