bloggingbuyouts

Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) is heading toward Japan in a partnered bid with Aetos Capital LLC to buy Japanese property company Simplex Investment Advisors in a 65% premium share bid, for the equivalent of about $1.1 billion to $1.35 billion, depending on your price calculations in current and closing prices of yen on the Japanese stock prices versus closing prices. The bid is for at least 80% of Simplex, and it appears that Nikko Cordial, part of Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) in Japan, is selling its 42.5% stake to the venture.

If you think the U.S. property weakness has been bad, the situation in Japan has been worse. Japan experienced its own bubble back in the 1980s, and only in recent years have things seemed to get better. Goldman Sachs has already been active in buying commercial and recreational properties in Japan over the last decade, but this would mark a larger leap into a property market that may hold relative values.

Goldman Sachs was Jim Cramer's #2 Value Pick for 2007, and he recently said he thinks its stock could go to $300.00 per share next year. If you look at how Goldman Sachs recently crushed earnings by betting against mortgages, you'll know why.

Goldman Sachs has raised over $4 billion this year for property acquisitions, so you can assume more land grabs are coming. Bloomberg has a pretty detailed piece that gives more background on the ongoing landgrabs in Japan. If you want to look up more data on Simplex Investment Advisors, it trades under the numeric stock ticker "8942" on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Jon Ogg produces the SPECIAL SITUATION INVESTING NEWSLETTER and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.