Brother Industries has announced an offer to acquire all the assets of MUTOH Holdings, which includes the latter’s large-format printer business, its overseas subsidiaries, and associated buildings and other assets including intellectual property. Brother has offered ¥7626 per share or around ¥35 billion in total, equivalent to $223 million. However, that assumes that Brother manages to buy all 4,589,644 shares but it has set a minimum of 3,042,700, which is 66.29 percent of the shares, and Brother will only conclude the purchase if it achieves this minimum. Brother already has the backing of the major shareholders and the board of Mutoh Holdings will recommend shareholders to accept.
At first glance, this does seem like a very high price, given that the MUTOH shares were only worth ¥2962 at the start of trading on February 4, 2026 although they rose to ¥2980 by the close of the business day in Tokyo. Brother says that it calculated the purchase price based on the business value, as well as the transfer price of Mutoh’s head office building, which is included in the deal, plus various other unspecified factors. This presumably refers to Mutoh’s portfolio of office buildings, commercial facilities, and childcare centres for lease in Tokyo and other regions. (PHOTO Credit: ME Printer Magazine)
