TOKYO: Trading in Takata Corp shares was suspended on Thursday after a report that the Japanese airbag maker at the heart of the car industry’s biggest-ever recall is considering a bankruptcy plan that will create a new company and ringfence its liabilities.
The Nikkei business daily reported Chinese-owned car parts maker Key Safety Systems (KSS), the company’s preferred bidder, would sponsor the turnaround plan by injecting 200 billion yen (US$1.8 billion) and helping create a new operating company.
That money would be transferred to Takata to help settle claims linked to faulty air bags that have been blamed for at least 16 deaths worldwide.
A Takata spokesman declined to comment, saying the company planned to issue a statement through the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Agreement on a restructuring deal, eight years after the first death, would enable Takata to draw a line under the crisis but help it continue supplying replacement air bag inflators, as well as selling seat belts and other vehicle components.
Takata has long insisted it prefers a privately arranged restructuring, but people with knowledge of the situation have told Reuters that the company has come under increasing pressure from potential bidders and automaker clients to agree to a court-ordered process, which would provide more transparency.
Automakers including Honda Motor Co Ltd, which have been paying for recalls for almost a decade, have insisted on the court route - even if that would wipe out shareholder value, hitting the founding Takada family, with a 60 per cent stake, hard.
Reuters this month reported that KSS, a US unit of China’s Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp, and Bain Capital LLC were preferred bidders. One source said KSS and Bain plan to offer around 200 billion yen for Takata.
A spokeswoman for KSS declined to comment, while Hong Kong-based representatives for Bain could not immediately be reached.
Discussions that involve the automaker’s clients, suitors and bankers are likely to run on until at least the end of May, sources have said.
In January, Takata agreed to plead guilty to criminal wrongdoing and to pay US$1 billion to resolve a federal investigation into its inflators.
A federal judge in Detroit this month said he plans to name former Federal Bureau of Investigation director Robert Mueller to oversee nearly US$1 billion in Takata restitution funds as part of a US Justice Department settlement. -- REUTERS