Square Enix has announced plans to purchase more than half of fellow Japanese publisher Tecmo in a bid to boost its global competitiveness.

The proposed deal is valued at 920 yen per Tecmo share, representing a 30 percent premium to their closing price on Thursday, and worth at least $102 million, Reuters reports.

Square Enix said that it would maintain the Tecmo brand following a buyout, but warned that it would drop its bid if the Ninja Gaiden publisher’s management rejected the offer out of hand or failed to respond by September 4.
 
Last week Tecmo president Yoshimi Yasuda resigned citing "personal reasons", but the company and Yasuda himself have recently been embroiled in a number of legal suits regarding staff payments.

[UPDATE] Square Enix followed up on reports by issuing its own press release, which gave the reasoning behind the Tecmo bid:

"Videogames have been globally recognized as a major entertainment genre, and have now become an industry receiving considerable attention in terms of its market size and growth potential. In the meantime, the game industry in Japan is standing at a critical juncture whether it continues to be a center of the videogame industry in the world, or not.

"Tecmo is a group of excellent creators with proven track-record in the global market, which is a precious human resource of Japan. We, however, cannot be optimistic about the future of this significant resource, given the current circumstances surrounding Tecmo.

"We believe that Tecmo will be able to make a great leap forward by joining the Square Enix Group, which will provide the group with further growth opportunities as well.

"We are planning to position Tecmo as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Square Enix Holdings maintaining Tecmo’s current organization and brand as in the cases of Square Enix and Taito."