Hitachi, Carlyle, Permira among bidders for $1 billion Takeda unit - sources

TOKYO (Reuters) - Hitachi Ltd and buyout firms Carlyle Group and Permira are among suitors to buy Takeda Pharmaceutical Co's chemicals unit, people with knowledge of the matter said, in a deal that could total around $1 billion (767.5 million pounds).

Takeda Pharmaceutical, Japan's largest drugmaker by market value, has put its 70 percent stake in unlisted Wako Pure Chemicals Industries Ltd on the block to streamline operations. The first round of bidding closed on Tuesday.

Hitachi placed its bid through unit Hitachi Chemical Co, one of the sources said on Wednesday. The winning bidder would likely buy out the remaining shareholders, taking the deal size to more than 100 billion yen (761.13 million pounds), sources have said previously.

The Nikkei business daily reported Hitachi's bid earlier on Wednesday.

Officials at Takeda, Hitachi, Carlyle and Permira either declined to comment or were not contactable. The sources declined to be identified because the sale process is private.

Fujifilm Holdings Corp, which owns 9.5 percent of Wako Pure, was considering placing a bid, sources have said earlier. It was not immediately known if Fujifilm put in a bid by the Tuesday deadline. A Fujifilm spokesman declined to comment.

Takeda had invited a number of global buyout firms as well as corporations to bid for its stake in the Osaka-based maker of laboratory chemicals and clinical diagnostic reagents, which had sales of 75.7 billion yen last year.

(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki, Kentaro Hamada, Emi Emoto and Junko Fujita; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)