Japan’s Softbank and its affiliate Yahoo Japan have cancelled plans to transfer mobile unit eAccess from the operator to the search engine company.
In late March, Yahoo Japan had agreed to spend Y324bn (US$3.17 bn) for eAccess. Softbank owns 99.6% of…
Japan’s Softbank and its affiliate Yahoo Japan have cancelled plans to transfer mobile unit eAccess from the operator to the search engine company.
In late March, Yahoo Japan had agreed to spend Y324bn (US$3.17 bn) for eAccess. Softbank owns 99.6% of the mobile unit, but only 33.3% in terms of voting shares, while it holds 42.2% of Yahoo Japan.
The deal was expected to go ahead after eAccess absorbs local wireless player Willcom, a 100%-owned Softbank unit.
In a statement today, the operator said it ended the transaction process with Yahoo Japan following “in-depth discussions on the mutual use of networks”, which means the internet portal will use eAccess infrastructure rather than owning it.
The eAccess/Willcom merger is however set to complete on 1 June to create a new entity called Ymobile.
“The company and Yahoo Japan came to the conclusion that rather than Yahoo Japan converting [Ymobile] to a consolidated subsidiary and building an infrastructure on its own, it would be better to develop the business by employing the strengths of each company, with Yahoo Japan responsible for services and [Ymobile] for infrastructure,” Softbank said.
The new agreement therefore allows Yahoo Japan to still go ahead with its planned low-cost mobile internet service.
Softbank had expected to record around Y55.7bn (US$545m) on gain on the sale of eAccess, the proceeds of which could have been used for its expansion strategy in the US after buying Sprint last year. But the operator is to issue a Y300bn (US$2.9bn) bond in the next few days to finance investments.
Softbank, including its eAccess and Willcom units, is the second-largest mobile operator in Japan, behind NTT Docomo but ahead of KDDI.
