On May 18, 2006, Daikin Industries, Ltd. (Head Office: Osaka, Japan; Chairman of the Board and CEO: Noriyuki Inoue) ("Daikin") announced at the board meeting held today, that its board of directors has passed a resolution regarding commencing the acquisition (the "Acquisition") of up to a 100% stake in O.Y.L. Industries Bhd. (Head Office: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) ("OYL"), a Malaysian publicly listed company engaged in the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air-conditioning) and air-filtration businesses worldwide, and that Daikin has concluded a conditional Share Sale Agreement with the principal shareholders of OYL relating to this Acquisition.
1. Overview of the Acquisition
The Acquisition envisages an acquisition of up to 100% of OYL shares, with the per share purchase price of 5.73 Ringgit Malaysia (“RM”) per OYL ordinary share (approximately 175 yen), totaling approximately 7,608 RM million (approximately 232 billion yen1). The Acquisition is intended to involve the following 2 steps:
(1) Purchase of OYL Shares through a Direct Business Transaction Daikin, though a direct business transaction, will purchase OYL shares from the largest shareholder of OYL, Hong Leong Secretarial Services Sdn. Bhd, a private subsidiary company of Hong Leong
Group (Malaysia), a major Malaysian investment holding group, who controls approximately 40.0% of OYL’s outstanding shares, and Mr. Liu Wan Min (the President & CEO of OYL), holding approximately 5.2% of OYL shares (both collectively referred to as the “Vendors”). The purchase price for the combined approximately 45.2% stake is approximately 3,441 RM million (approximately 105 billion yen).
(2) Launch of Mandatory General Offer on the remaining OYL shares (Up to approximately 54.8%) Daikin will purchase the remaining OYL shares (up to approximately 54.8%) through a Mandatory General Offer (“MGO,” public tender offer in Malaysia) from other public shareholders. The price paid in the MGO will be 4,167 RM million (approximately 127 billion yen), if all remaining OYL shareholders accept the offer.
The Acquisition is subject to approvals of the relevant Malaysian authorities and antitrust clearances in the relevant countries, the stock purchase from the Vendors (step 1) is due at the beginning of July 2006, and the settlement for the tendered shares by the other OYL shareholders under the MGO (step 2) is due at the end of September 2006
2. About OYL Industries Bhd.
OYL, headquartered in Malaysia, is a global company operating HVAC business and commercial air-filtration business. Established in 1974, OYL became a member of the Hong Leong Group (Malaysia) in 1990. In 1994, OYL acquired McQuay International (former SnyderGeneral Corporation), an HVAC manufacturer based in the U.S., which has accelerated the globalization of its businesses. OYL currently is the fourth-largest Global Applied (large-scale commercial air-conditionings) manufacturer and the third-largest commercial air-filtration manufacturer in the world, with revenue of approximately 168 billion yen and operating profit of approximately 11.5 billion yen for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2005.
Hong Leong Group (Malaysia), established in 1963, is a major Malaysian investment holding group. The Group’s activities include finance, real estate, HVAC, semiconductor and distribution businesses. The Executive Chairman of the Group, YBhg Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan is also the Executive Chairman of OYL.
3. Daikin’s Global Business Strategy and Rationale for the Acquisition
1) Current business environment of HVAC industry
The global HVAC market is expected to see further growth in the coming years due to increasing penetration into Europe and BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), expansion of Solution Business that combines air-conditioning equipment and systems in matured market such as Japan and the U.S., increasing needs for energy saving and rise of new demand for unconventional air-conditioning equipment with a new trend of natural refrigerant. Meanwhile, due to the ongoing industry consolidation, Daikin believes in that strengthening competitiveness at the global level is vital to Succeed.
Daikin has been pursuing various strategies, in order to accelerate entries into new emerging markets and expansion of business areas. Through the Acquisition, Daikin aims to further grow globally by combining and maximizing each of Daikin’s and OYL’s complementary strengths and features in the HVAC businesses.
2) Features of Daikin/OYL and future development after the Acquisition
Daikin is strong in products and technologies in the Ductless air-conditioning segment, especially in high-value added air-conditioning s. OYL is strong in products/technologies and engineering in the Applied business segment, and low-cost HVAC products with its low-cost mass-production technology. In addition, looking at both parties’ regional presence, Daikin has established leading positions in Japan, Europe and Asia, whereas OYL holds a solid presence in North America and Asia.
Daikin believes that the Acquisition will enable both Daikin and OYL to further enhance these strengths and address the challenges by complementing one another.
For example, the Acquisition will allow Daikin a full-fledged entry into North America, the largest air-conditioning market, where Daikin has entered with Ductless products last year, as well as expansion into Global Applied business, which has been dominated by American competitors. Moreover, entry into new emerging markets, such as India, Russia and Brazil will be accelerated with a full product line-up of commercial to residential air-conditioning s. As a result, Daikin, focused on expanding into the Global “Eight” Regions (Japan, Europe, Asia/Oceania, China, North America, Latin America, India, Middle East/Africa), will seek to realize large synergies and to be able to achieve faster and successful implementation of its business strategy.
As for OYL, through combining with Daikin’s advanced technology, highly developed products and a powerful sales force, Daikin expects OYL to improve in areas such as mid-to-long term product development capabilities, especially in high-value added/high-performing products and forming an appropriate response to environmental issue such as energy savings and refrigerant regulations.
Daikin will aim to become a global top-tier company by accelerating product/technological development, service/solution business in response to today’s trends and expansion of presence in new markets by fully leveraging differentiated technology and business know-how of both parties.
3) Synergies resulting from the Acquisition
Daikin expects the Acquisition to result in large significant achievements upon implementation of the group’s business strategies, such as consolidation of sales/production bases, centralized/joint procurement, and utilization of both parties’ sales channels. These quantifiable synergies at this point are expected to generate approximately 10-15 billion yen (profit before tax) per year by fiscal year 2009. Moreover, Daikin is working towards achieving even larger synergies from the combination.
For instance, in addition to the above mentioned business expansion and development in North America market with OYL as the foothold, Global Applied market and emerging markets with low-cost product development, Daikin supposes that there are other strategic themes and synergies that are yet to be quantified: Synergies between the commercial air-filtration business and Daikin’s fluorochemical business and global expansion and development of the low temperature and refrigeration businesses. Daikin will specify and implement these major strategic themes early on for further accomplishments.
4. Profitability of the Acquisition
Daikin’s financials such as interest-bearing debt ratio are expected to deteriorate temporarily because of the acquisition cost. However, due to OYL’s relatively high profitability, the short-term impact on Daikin’s profitability such as EPS (earnings per share) is assumed to be limited even after considering the amortization of goodwill, and Daikin expects profit expansion at a relatively early stage. Daikin is seeking to improve the financial conditions and increase profit further by OYL’s expansion of business performance and realization of synergies from the Acquisition. In addition, Daikin expects ROI (Return on Investment) of the acquisition cost at just above 10%. In addition, Daikin is focusing on further improvement of ROI through the realization of more synergies in the future.
At this point, the impact of the Acquisition on Daikin’s consolidated revenue and profit for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2007 is assumed to be equivalent to OYL’s performance of a half year, assuming the Daikin’s consolidation of OYL in its financial reports to start from the second half of this fiscal year. However, the impact on the results for this fiscal year will be announced separately due to the possible change on starting date of its consolidation according to the Acquisition progress and the result of the tender offer as well as different ending month of a fiscal period.
5. Funding of the Acquisition
Funding of the Acquisition is ensured: Cash on hand and bank loans will cover the acquisition cost at this moment. In the future, in accordance with Daikin’s business plan and overall capital needs, the most appropriate form of financing, including issuance of stock and/or convertible bonds and debt finance will be executed as appropriate with great care of the possible impact on Daikin’s stock price and credit rating by also considering Daikin’s business performance, financial positions and economic/market condition.
6. Purchase Price Valuation
The purchase price of 5.73 RM per share implies a premium of approximately 22% to the latest one month average OYL share price as of May 12, 2006 at Bursa Malaysia.
7. Business Operations after the Acquisition
After the completion of the Acquisition, OYL will continue its operations as a consolidated subsidiary Daikin. While Daikin may dispatch some executive officers to OYL, as a general rule, current OYL management will continue operating its business under the current OYL organizational structure for the foreseeable future. With respect to independence, interaction and learning from each other, Daikin will strive to maximize the Acquisition synergies. To be more precise, the inauguration of a joint committee between both parties will be designed and the committee will start a joint study at an early Date.
Moreover, while respecting OYL’s corporate culture and tradition, Daikin will work towards helping OYL’s management and employees understand our “mission statement” and “corporate ethics”, and aim to build shared sense of value for sense of unity and create the third corporate culture. At the same time, Daikin will communicate to OYL management and employees our goal and strategy as a combined Group.
For more information, please contact:
Daikin Industries, Ltd.
(Headquarters) PR Dept. TEL: +81 (6) 6373-4348
(Tokyo) PR Dept. TEL: +81 (3) 6716-0112