Cerberus questions Seibu management ahead of annual meeting

Dan Quayle (Republican) served as the 44th Vice President of the United States and he is the CEO for Cerberus.

I have never liked this guy. It is very regrettable that he always strikes me as a bully. Hope Seibu can tell him to get hell off Seibu.

Or you may ask him how to spell "potatoes", will ya?

“Please explain in a specific way so that shareholders, who have lost opportunities to trade shares over eight years since delisting, can be convinced,” Cerberus said in the letter.

In December 2008, Cerberus subsequently informed GMAC’s bondholders that the financial services company may have to file for bankruptcy if a bond-exchange plan is not approved. The company had previously said it may fail in its quest to become a bank holding company because it lacks adequate capital.[48] In January 2009, Merkin resigned from his chairmanship as a condition by the U.S. government.[51] Five days earlier, the Federal Reserve granted GMAC bank holding company status, so it could get access to the bailout money.[52] On December 29, 2008, the U.S. Treasury gave GMAC $5 billion from its $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). (On May 21, 2009, the U.S. Treasury department announced it would invest an additional $7.5 billion in GMAC, and on December 30, 2009, the U.S. Treasury department said that they would invest another $3.8 billion in GMAC because the company had been unable to raise additional funds in the private sector. This raised the total government investment in GMAC to $16.3 billion.)

=> 1.06 Billion seems kind of small compared to $16.3 billion (at almost 0% interest). Cerberus (three-headed dog of Hades) - How do you respond to that? (convince me)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU19ZIBYbIM (Keyser Soze - Convince me)

Capital Investment-when you hear this, be alarmed. They are not for you.

Capital investment firm like Cerberus is there to start controlling business first, and then start selling the assets one piece by one piece for profit under the name of business consolidation and efficiency. Many people lost jobs because of capital investment like this. Mitt Romney owns a couple capital investment firms that made him very wealthy. US workers are very afraid of them as they understand that their jobs are numbered and go out the window if the company is taken over by them. Be careful.

globalwatcherJun. 16, 2013 - 02:43PM JST

Capital Investment-when you hear this, be alarmed. They are not for you.

Yes, capital investment is capitalism at its worst, however keiretsu is Japan Inc at its worst. I just went to Seiyu and for a small packet of US cherries, I would have had to pay $3.

Seibu is the model of supplier/seller relationship, where the customer ultimately pays the real price (expensive and very limited product choices) and while I think Cerberus will ultimately fail because for all Abe's blow hard words, Japan is only for the Japanese, a bit of gai-atsu will show the world that japan hasn't changed one little bit.

I never really understood why Seibu had to be delisted and "bailed out" when the only problem seemingly was that Yoshiaki Tsutsumi controlled nearly the whole company (88%). Ok, so he broke the minimum-freefloat rules, and he was conviced, put in jail, all that. But what does this have to do with the finances of the company? Why did it suddenly need a bailout? And what happened to all the shares owned by Tsutsumi/Kokudo?

That's what I want to know. Why did Seibu got themselves involved with this mess? Anyone? So that things like this can be avoided at beginning.

Cerberus needs to be kicked out of Japan, they are bad news, a matter of fact Cerberus is bad news for America as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISqE6AD2OL0

vukodlokJun. 17, 2013 - 12:29AM JST

Thank you for trying, but I cannot access to the web. Please repost the weblink again, so that I can read about Cerberus hostile takeover history of Seibu. Thank you.

Tsutsumi registered Seibu Railway shares owned by Kokudo in the names of various affiliated individuals, often without their permission, so that the true ownership of the company was not readily apparent.[2] Following the death of Tsutsumi in 1964, his third son Yoshiaki Tsutsumi inherited control of Kokudo and continued the practice of falsifying shareholder records. He was arrested on securities fraud charges in March 2005.[3] On December 21, 2005, Seibu Railway was delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange. A reorganization of the group, completed in February 2006, created Seibu Holdings to act as a holding company for both the railway and Prince Hotels. Cerberus Group, an American investment fund, became the largest shareholder in Seibu Holdings with a 29.9% share of the new company.[1] In late 2012 and early 2013, Cerberus proposed that Seibu Railway abolish five non-core lines, along with other restructuring measures throughout the Seibu Holdings group, but management refused to implement these changes. Cerberus then executed a tender offer to increase its stake to 35% as of June 2013, giving Cerberus the power to veto shareholder resolutions.[4]

I am kind of interested in what rail lines they wanted sold or "abolished."

Olympus redux here? Gaijin (The Wall St. Journal) broke the Seibu sleaze story, forcing Japanese investigators to investigate. They found corporate records falsified by a megalomaniac. Don't think he went to jail, wasn't his sentence suspended? And fined....wait for it....5 million yen!!!!

Cerebus may not be angels, but hopefully they can bring some transparency to Japan Inc. style corporate sleaze.

Non-core lines? Maybe those spur lines that run out to the amusement facilities, etc.?

http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-243360/

Thank you for a good hint, JeffLee. I have read the article listed above. I am posting this hoping all Japanese bankers might read this as a good example.

This could have been well avoided if the bankers were willing to invest on Seibu or Sony.. Japanese bankers are not willing to take risks. Instead, they want to buy US Treasury Bond through PIMCO. Because, US Treasury Bond buying is not a hard work (no financial underwriting) and it is much safer. If everyone wants to succeed, you need to take risk. Abe is now suggresting an increase of INVESTMENT SPENDING in "Third Arrow" hopefully, that will help Seibu and Sony in the future. Of course, they have to do their shares too to reduce inefficiency..

they found corporate records falsified by a megalomaniac.

When he inherited the company from his father the shares where already in other people's names. = He just went along with it. Still fraudulent.

Happened to Walter Annenberg when his father (Moses) didn't pay taxes.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/01/us-seibu-idUSBRE95003B20130601

While Cerberus fell short of its targeted stake, the fund, which now controls 35.48 percent of Seibu, is expected to shift its focus to a possible proxy fight to secure votes for its nominees ahead of the annual shareholders' meeting on June 25.

Seibu needs to commit themselves for business transparency. Without accurate financial reports, the bankers cannot invest. I was blaming bankers on my previous post, but actually the blame goes back to Seibu.

Bankers (Financial analysts) cannot perform underwriting for investment based on false financial reportS. That's why it is very important to keep clean financial statements to the public ALL THE TIME. This ugly lesson goes to Olympus, Sony, Seibu and many other Japanese Corporations. The bottom line, keep all financial reports clean and correct in transparency. That's a No.1 job responsibility for the management. Good luck, Japan.