Column: The battle of M&A between Livedoor and Fuji TV.

"Money can do many things, but not everything."

"I'm not trying to takeover, I'm just trying to cooperate."

"We don't trust an IT profiteer."

"If you don't want to be controlled by the Capitalists outside, then don't list stocks in the market."

These are the words said in the battle of Merger and Acquisition(M&A) between Livedoor and Fuji TV, in Japan.

Here are the brief passage of the battle between them.

January 17, 2005
Livedoor, the newly founded IT company, announced to acquire 50% to 100% of the stocks of Nippon Broadcast, which is the parent company of Fuji TV.

February 8, 2005
Livedoor announced that they had acquired 35% of the stocks of Nippon Broadcast.

February 10, 2005
Against it, Fuji TV declared Take-Over Bid(TOB) to acquire 25% of the stocks of Nippon Broadcast, to lose effect of Livedoor.

February 23, 2005
Nippon Broadcast announced that they will issue reservation for new stocks to Fuji TV, to lower the proportion of the stocks possessed by Livedoor.

February 24, 2005
Livedoor applied a preliminary injunction of issue to Tokyo District Court.

March 7, 2005
TOB of Fuji TV ended, and announced that they had secured 36.47% of the stocks.

March 11, 2005
Tokyo District Court banned issue reservation for new stocks.

March 16, 2005
Livedoor announced that they acquired more than 50% of stocks in voting rights basis.

March 17, 2005
Livedoor plans to take-over Fuji TV by Leveraged Buyout (LBO). It allows to charter funds with buying company as collateral.

March 24, 2005
Nippon Broadcast lends all the stocks of Fuji TV to another IT company, Softbank Investment as a White Knight.

April 18. 2005
Finally, Livedoor and Fuji TV reconciled. They reached a consensus in business tie-up, Fuji TV buys all the stocks of Nippon Broadcast which is possessed by Livedoor, Livedoor allocates new shares to Fuji TV, and Fuji TV invests 12.75% to Livedoor. As a result, Fuji TV paid 147 Billion Yen (about 1.38 Billion US Dollars).