Elliott and Blackstone Enter Hostile Territory in Japan
The hidden gems in a weakly valued real-estate company are proving hard to dig out.
Japan has hundreds of publicly listed property companies with assets waiting to be spun off.
Photographer: Hitoshi Yamada/NurPhoto/Getty
A small $1.5 billion company is attracting the biggest movers in finance in what’s shaping up as the first high-profile foreign hostile takeover in Japan. If successful, it could wake up the sleepy $228 billion market of publicly listed real-estate companies.
The attention is on Unizo Holdings Co., until recently an obscure developer and hotel operator. The company has a big chunk of its office rental business, which accounts for about 90% of operating income, in Tokyo, where the vacancy rate is as low as 2% and a decent 3.5% yield can be earned.