By a two-thirds margin, Sapporo Holdings Ltd. shareholders voted Friday to back the brewer in its ongoing struggle to avert a takeover by its largest shareholder, Steel Partners, a U.S.-based activist hedge fund.
Shareholders were unmoved by a less aggressive bid offered earlier this month by Steel Partners Japan Strategic Fund (Offshore), L.P., a unit of the U.S. hedge fund.
"We gained approval of the shareholders on basic issues, as we did last year," Sapporo President Takao Murakami told a news conference after the annual general shareholders meeting in Tokyo earlier in the day.