Steel Partners underlined the waning interest of activist shareholders in Japan as it withdrew its offer to raise its stake in Sapporo Holdings, the beer company with which it has been in confrontation with for more than two years.

The US hedge fund, which in Japan came to epitomise aggressive, Anglo-Saxon shareholder activism, said it was withdrawing its proposal to increase its stake in Sapporo from 18.6 per cent to 33.3 per cent at Y875 a share, which would have cost it 50.7bn yen ($550m).