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Australia's Toll Holdings agrees to A$6.5 billion takeover by Japan Post

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Toll Holdings Ltd (TOL.AX), Australia's largest freight and logistics firm, said on Wednesday it had accepted a A$6.5 billion (£3.3 billion) takeover offer from government-owned Japan Post Holdings Co Ltd (IPO-JAPP.T).

Toll's board said the A$9.04 offer price, a 49 percent premium to Tuesday's closing price of A$6.08, represented a "compelling transaction" and recommended unanimously that shareholders accept the offer.

Japan Post, one of the world's biggest financial institutions with net assets of some 13.8 trillion yen ($115 billion), plans to list this year as part of a bid to become a leading global logistics player.

Acquiring Toll, the largest independent logistics company in the Asia Pacific, would be a significant step towards that goal.

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"Together, this will be a very powerful combination and one of the world's top five logistics companies," Toll Chairman Ray Horsburgh said in a statement.

Japan Post said in a statement it plans to "draw on Toll's extensive M&A expertise and global management acumen to step up M&As throughout Asia, Europe and North America to become a global logistics leader."

Under the deal, Toll will be run as a division within Japan Post, retaining its name and its current management. The takeover is subject to approval by shareholders and regulators, including Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB).

"Toll has had a less-than-stellar six or seven years, so Japan Post would be looking at how they can utilise Toll's assets to get better outcomes ... plus they might like the fact that it takes them into new geographies that they have a positive view on," said Angus Gluskie, a portfolio manager at White Funds Management.

Toll has a number of businesses in Asia, although it announced in November that it planned to offload some of those as part of a A$100 million asset sale to boost profits.

On the block were an Indian trucking business, shipping businesses in northern Australia and Asia, and Singapore-based Toll Global Express Asia.

The pullback from expansion in Asia was a response to slowing growth in the Australian mining sector and strong competition for parcels delivery from government-owned Australia Post.

Japan Post said in December it planned to list its core postal business, as well as its bank and insurance units, in what could be the biggest IPO of Japanese state enterprises in two decades.

(Reporting by Jane Wardell and Lincoln Feast; Editing by Kevin Liffey)