Jakks Pacific Inc., which rejected the cheapest offer for a toy company on record, may now have to accept an even lower bid after the maker of Hello Kitty, Pokemon and Smurfs character goods cut its sales forecast.
Jakks, which received an unsolicited offer of $20 a share from Oaktree Capital Management LP in September, turned it down three weeks later and said the buyout firm was trying to “take advantage” of adverse economic conditions to acquire the company on the cheap. The bid valued Jakks at 0.52 times its revenue, less than half the median for toy takeovers over $100 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
With Jakks losing 20 percent of its value after saying last month that sales for 2011 would fall short of its own estimates, the company is now worth less than it was before Oaktree’s offer emerged. Bloomberg
