This story is meaningfully developing after that 'Economist' article something is not right here..
Softbank to Sell 300 Bln Yen in New Shares: Nikkei (Update4)
3/24/0 2:56 (New York)
Softbank to Sell 300 Bln Yen in New Shares: Nikkei (Update4)
(Adds more analyst and investor comments throughout)
Tokyo, March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Softbank Corp., one of the
world's biggest Internet investors, plans to sell 300 billion yen
($2.8 billion) in new shares by the end of April, the Nihon
Keizai newspaper reported. Investors said the sale may struggle.
Softbank shares fell as much as 14 percent after the report,
to 87,000 yen before a wave of sell orders caused a halt in
trading until the market closed. Nomura Securities Co. isarranging the sale.
The newspaper report, which cited unnamed people at the
company, said a final decision would be made at a meeting of the
company's board of directors today. Softbank spokesmen declinedto comment.
``They need cash for new investments,' said Laurent Halmos,
a director at Credit Lyonnais International Asset Management
(Japan) Ltd., which manages about $348 million in Japanese
equities. Softbank may also be trying to reduce debt, he said.
The firm may also need the cash for pending acquisitions of
Japanese financial companies or more Internet firms, said Makoto
Ueno, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research Inc. The company
may, however, find money managers willing to pass up the
opportunity to acquire new Softbank shares, long the darling of
Internet investors.
The report comes two days after Oracle Corp. Japan started
selling 9.7 million shares to raise as much as $8.8 billion, a
transaction that would rank as the second biggest Japanese public
offering of stock. Because so much stock in Japanese technology companies is
being offered at the same time, Softbank's sale may prove
difficult, other investors said.
``Information and telecommunications stocks have lost
momentum,' said Tatsuhiko Takura, general manager of investment
research at Tokio Marine Asset Management Co., which holds
Softbank shares as part of the 900 billion yen equity portfolio
it manages for pension funds.
``The new stock sale would be taking place at such a timing,
and as seen in the company's stock price today, investors have
reacted negatively,' he said. ``When there's strong momentum,
it's hard to stop the surge, but once it wanes, it would take
quite a bit of thrust to get it back up again.'
Softbank earlier this week completed the sale of its entire
4.85 percent stake in Trend Micro Inc., a Japanese developer and
supplier of anti-virus software, for 66.9 billion yen. |
