Reuters
TOKYO, Dec 6 (Reuters) – Harmonic Drive Systems (6324.T), a Japanese maker of speed reducers, said on Wednesday that Toyota Motor (7203.T) will sell its entire stake in the company in the open market overseas.
The move could fan hopes among investors that Toyota will accelerate sales of shareholdings in affiliates and partners following last week’s announcement it would divest a stake in supplier Denso (6902.T), a pillar of the Toyota group.
That share sale came after the world’s top-selling automaker said in July it would sell some of its holdings in telecom giant KDDI (9433.T), as it invests to speed up electrification.
Toyota will sell 4,379,400 shares of Harmonic Drive Systems at an undecided sale price, the precision control equipment maker said in a regulatory filing.
The stake was worth 18.1 billion yen ($123 million) at Wednesday’s closing price of 4,135 yen per share.
Harmonic Drive Systems said it would buy back up to 700,000 of its own shares, worth up to 0.73% of its outstanding stock, to reduce the impact of the sale on its shareholders.
Reporting by Daniel Leussink and Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Jacqueline Wong
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