Japan's Kokusai Electric to hold secondary offering; KKR to sell shares

TOKYO (Reuters) -Kokusai Electric said on Wednesday it would hold a secondary offering of up to 60.4 million shares, with investors including private equity firm to sell shares.

The secondary offering would be worth about 326 billion yen ($2.02 billion) including overallotment based on Wednesday's closing price and follows a blistering run in the shares of the Japanese chip equipment maker.

Kokusai, which closed down 8% in Tokyo on Wednesday after Reuters reported the share sale plan, said it would buy back shares worth up to 18 billion yen.

Including overallotment KKR's stake would fall to 23% from around 43% previously.

Kokusai has a market capitalisation of roughly $8.5 billion and its shares have gained about 75% year-to-date.

The company is targeting improved margins and investors are rushing to back chip equipment manufacturers amid expectations that investment in technology such as artificial intelligence will boost the sector.

($1 = 161.4600 yen)

(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Additional reporting by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Jamie Freed, Tom Hogue Editing by Louise Heavens)