Japanese telco Softbank is reportedly set to buy a fifth of Korea’s largest online retailer Coupang for US$1bn.
The two companies are currently in due diligence, reported South Korean publication The Bell.
Softbank and Coupang, which was founded in…
Japanese telco Softbank is reportedly set to buy a fifth of Korea’s largest online retailer Coupang for US$1bn.
The two companies are currently in due diligence, reported South Korean publication The Bell.
Softbank and Coupang, which was founded in 2010, did not reply to requests for comment.
A deal would follow in the footsteps of Softbank’s investment in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son bought into Alibaba for just US$20m in 2000, and its stake of about a third of the Chinese group was valued at US$54bn when it listed in the US last year.
A sluggish Japanese economy has led Softbank to look abroad for growth, and the group has recently made a raft of acquisitions to diversify its portfolio as its US telco Sprint struggles to compete with larger rivals. Its recent acquisitions include an investment in Indonesian e-commerce firm Tokopedia.
Coupang claims to be Korea’s most well-funded private technology player. It will have raised a reported US$1.4bn in total once its latest funding round has cleared.
In December, the group said it had secured US$300m in financing led by private equity firm Blackrock, with additional participation from Wellington Management, Greenoaks Capital Management, and Rose Park Advisors.
It claimed to have nearly half a billion US dollars in cash at the time, after exceeding US$1bn in annual gross merchandise value in 2013 – its third full year of operations.
According to Coupang, its business is built around a “mobile first” strategy that leverages on South Korea having the world’s fastest internet connection speed, and one of the highest mobile phone penetration rates.
