|
  |
|
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Vodafone eyes Japan Telecom sale
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Vodafone Group, the world's biggest mobile phone operator, said on Wednesday it was in talks to sell Japan Telecom, its fixed-line business in Japan. The company has also agreed to buy shares that it does not already own of Sweden's Europolitan and Portugal's Telecel-Comunicacoes Pessoais for about 1.2 billion euros ($1.1 billion). In a three-line statement to the London Stock Exchange, Vodafone said: "It is in discussions regarding its fixed line subsidiary, Japan Telecom Co., that may or may not lead to an offer." Vodafone is talking to U.S. investment fund Ripplewood, which became the first foreign investor to buy a Japanese bank when it took the failed Long-Term Credit Bank in 2000 and relaunched it as Shinsei Bank. By September last year, Ripplewood had acquired about 150 billion yen ($1.25 billion) of Japanese equity in Shinsei and five other firms including music software company Nippon Columbia. Ripplewood could complete the Japan Telecom deal, said to be worth more than 300 billion yen ($2.51 billion), as early as next month, reported the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily in Japan. Vodafone has been expected to sell fixed-line assets as it focuses on growing its wireless business. Japan's fixed-line business has been battered as consumers switch to mobile phones and cut-price Internet phones. If the sale goes through, Vodafone will be able to funnel more money into its J-Phone wireless business as it takes on industry leader NTT DoCoMo. "If Vodafone missed this opportunity, it would be left with few choices, such as selling the operation to Tokyo Electric Power Co cheap,'' Motoharu Sone, senior analyst at UFJ Tsubasa Research Institute, told Reuters. Japan Telecom, the country's third-largest telecoms operator, last year rejected an offer from Tokyo Electric, Japan's largest power utility, for its fixed-line business. Ripplewood was likely to buy all the shares in Japan Telecom, the fixed-line division, and Vodafone would assume its debt of 150 billion yen, said the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. "With its conventional telephone exchange equipment getting outmoded, the price seems just about right,'' said Sone. Shares in Japan Telecom Holdings jumped on the news, ending 5.79 percent higher at 384,000 yen and outperforming the Nikkei average, which rose just 0.77 percent. Vodafone rose 1 percent to 110 pence in early London trading on Wednesday.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
