Toyota group companies plan $4.7-B sale of Denso stake -sources

TOKYO  – Toyota group companies plan to cut their holdings in auto supplier Denso by selling about 10 percent of the company by year-end in a share sale likely worth around $4.7 billion, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Toyota Motor’s portion will represent almost half of the roughly 10 percent, with the total sale seen at about 700 billion yen ($4.7 billion) at current market prices, the two sources said.

Toyota Motor, which held some 24.2 percent of Denso as of the end of September, is expected to remain as the top shareholder in the company after the sale.

Denso separately plans to buy back some of its own shares in the open market to offset the potential hit to its share price, according to the sources, who declined to be identified because the matter is not public.

A Toyota spokesperson said it was not in a position to comment on Denso, adding the contents of the Reuters report of the share sale were not something it had announced itself.

A Denso spokesperson declined to comment.

Denso, a key Toyota supplier, is the world’s second-largest maker of automotive components.

Buyers of the shares are expected to largely be domestic investors, and the price has yet to be determined, the sources said.

The sale would mark the latest step by Toyota to unload some of its cross-shareholdings as it ramps up production of battery electric vehicles, a capital-intensive endeavor that requires funding for research and development as well as a factory-floor overhaul.

Toyota, the world’s top-selling automaker, in July said it would sell a stake worth about 250 billion yen in telecoms company KDDI Corp after unveiling a sweeping plan to improve the driving range and cut costs of battery electric vehicles.

Japanese companies have also been slowly unwinding their cross-shareholdings for years, a trend that has gotten fresh momentum from a push by the Tokyo Stock Exchange for companies to improve their use of capital.

Denso shares, which were down almost 4 percent before the news, extended losses after the Reuters report and fell as much as 6.8 percent on the day, closing 4.9 percent lower. Toyota shares finished little changed, as did the benchmark Nikkei 225.

($1 = 148.2400 yen)