By Kosaku Narioka
Elliott Investment Management has built a stake of 5.0% in Toyota Industries, the nearly 100-year-old Japanese company that is the subject of a take-private plan.
The U.S.-based activist investor has acquired shares of the company, partly to make significant proposals depending on the situation, its said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.
Elliott said in November that it had a significant stake in the Tokyo-listed company, and that it believed that Toyota Fudosan's proposal to take Toyota Industries private significantly undervalued the company. Elliott said then that it had been sharing its views about the proposal with the management of Toyota Industries, as well as its board and other constituents.
As of end-September, an Elliott entity held a 3.3% stake in the forklift-maker, the Japanese company's half-year financial report showed.
Toyota Fudosan, a real-estate arm of the Toyota group of companies, said in June that it would set up an entity to acquire shares of Toyota Industries at 16,300 yen each, and take it private. That valued the company at about Y4.9 trillion, equivalent to $31.23 billion, based on about 300 million shares outstanding.
The real-estate firm is privately held by Toyota group companies, with the car giant's chairman, Akio Toyoda, also serving as its chairman.
Toyota Industries, from which Toyota Motor was spun off in 1937, produces forklifts, cars, engines, other auto parts and textile machinery. It was founded by Sakichi Toyoda, Akio Toyoda's great-grandfather.
Toyota Industries, which is focusing on developing autonomous technologies for forklifts and logistics management software, plans to further advance these activities by going private while deepening collaboration within the group.
The forklift-maker's shares closed 1.1% higher at Y17,690 on Wednesday, before Elliott's filing. The shares were trading below Y13,000 in mid-April, before the company said it received various proposals, including one to take the business private.
Write to Kosaku Narioka at kosaku.narioka@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 10, 2025 05:12 ET (10:12 GMT)
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