Warren Buffett at the 2015 SelectUSA Investment Summit

Warren Buffet’s Iscar Ltd of Israel acquired Japanese tungsten carbide tool maker Tungaloy for US$ 1 billion

22 Sept 2008, author Gerhard Fasol

The Israeli company Iscar has completed the acquisition of Japanese competitor Tungaloy Corporation. Iscar acquired more than 90% of outstanding shares for around US$ 1 billion from Nomura Principal Finance Co.

The acquisition of Tungaloy by Warren Buffet/Berkshire Hathaway’s Iscar was announced on Monday September 22, 2008.

Iscar is the world’s second largest maker of tungsten carbide cutting tools, and competitor Tungaloy is the world’s fifth largest. Iscar is controlled by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. – Berkshire Hathaway acquired 80% of Iscar for US$ 4 billion in 2006.

The merged Iscar and Tungaloy will be better positioned to compete with global leader Sandvik AB, which has sales on the order of US$ 4 Billion.

Tungaloy Corporation emerged via a management buyout from Toshiba Tungaloy, with Nomura Principal Finance Co. as the largest share holder. Tungaloy has sales of YEN 50 Billion (approx. US$ 500 million), was founded in 1934, and has 2618 employees. Tungaloy is the fifth largest maker of Tungsten Carbide cutting tools in the world.

Iscar entered Japan’s market by opening a 100% owned subsidiary company in 1994, about 14 years ago.

To my knowledge this acquisition is also far larger than any acquisition in Japan by any European Union (EU) company this year (last year, in 2007 Permira announced the acquisition of Arysta LifeScience Corporation for US$ 2.2 Billion and completed the deal during 2008). The three largest acquisitions ever of Japanese companies by EU companies have been Vodafone’s acquisition of J-Phone (transaction value: about US$ 20 Billion), Daimler’s acquisition of Mitsubishi Motors (transaction value: about US$ 2-3 Billion), and Renault’s investment in Nissan (initial transaction value: about US$ 3 Billion) – of these three, only the Renault investment in Nissan was successful, the other two failed.

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