KKR, Blackstone, Goldman Bid for Fuji Media’s Sankei Building Unit as Offers Top $6.3B

Fuji Media Holdings has received bids from more than 15 firms for its Sankei Building property unit, with some offers exceeding JPY 1 trillion ($6.3 billion), as global investment giants chase one of Japan’s biggest-ever real estate deals, according to a media report.

Bidders for the Tokyo-based broadcaster’s real estate subsidiary include KKR, Blackstone and Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg said Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The offers top the JPY 500 billion to JPY 800 billion valuation range seen for Sankei Building when Fuji Media began sounding out buyers earlier this year, signalling stronger-than-expected demand for the developer and its trophy assets.

Fuji Media is set to reopen the first round of bidding to allow more time to evaluate the proposals and verify bidders’ ability to secure financing, with the deadline for the latest offers scheduled for mid-June, the news agency said.

Property Prize

The process follows Fuji Media’s launch of a sale campaign for Sankei Building in April, when the broadcaster was said to have retained Daiwa Securities and Mizuho Securities to advise on a transaction that could become Japan’s largest property deal of the year.

Sankei Building is part of a broader real estate arm that also includes hospitality operator Granvista Hotels & Resorts and nine other subsidiaries, with total assets of JPY 613.1 billion as of the company’s February disclosure.

The portfolio is anchored by the 31-storey Tokyo Sankei Building in Chiyoda ward, a prime office tower in the capital’s Otemachi financial district, where large-scale assets seldom come up for sale. The 2002-vintage tower sits on a 2,958 square metre site and provides 75,144 square metres (808,843 square feet) of leasable space, with typical floorplates of 1,737 square metres.

Beyond flagship offices, the Sankei platform spans hotels, apartments, nursing homes, logistics facilities and marine parks, including assets with orcas, adding an unusual wrinkle to the sale process.

Fuji Media has been weighing outside capital for its real estate business amid pressure from activist shareholders — including Dalton Investments and funds linked to Yoshiaki Murakami — which have called for improved capital efficiency, better shareholder returns and a separation of the company’s property assets.

The broadcaster in February announced plans to repurchase up to JPY 235 billion of its shares and said it had struck a deal to buy back holdings from Murakami-linked entities, though the activist camp was later reported to have continued building its position and to have submitted a JPY 350 billion offer for Sankei Building.

Buyout Momentum

The Sankei bidding comes as carve-outs of property subsidiaries become a growing source of deal flow in Japan, with corporates facing pressure from activists, the Tokyo Stock Exchange and policymakers to shed non-core assets and lift capital efficiency.

In the closing weeks of 2025, KKR teamed with Asia-focused private equity firm PAG to acquire the real estate business of Sapporo Holdings in a deal valuing the brewer’s property assets and operations at JPY 477 billion ($3 billion), capping months of bargaining after activist pressure pushed Sapporo to streamline its business.

KKR has also been active in real-estate-backed corporate transactions through its Fuji Soft privatisation, which valued the systems developer at north of $4 billion after a protracted contest with Bain Capital.

Seven months after the takeover, Fuji Soft sold a 14-asset office portfolio to Japan Metropolitan Fund, a KKR-managed REIT, for JPY 68.7 billion, with the software maker leasing back the properties.