Monday April 3, 10:56 pm Eastern Time
Nasdaq fall piles pressure on Softbank shares
TOKYO, April 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Nasdaq index's record points loss overnight piled new pressure on Softbank Corp on Tuesday, leaving shares in Japan's leading Internet investor 59 percent below the peak they scaled in February.
Softbank, which boasts stakes in various U.S. Net shares listed on Nasdaq, including Yahoo! Inc (NasdaqNM:YHOO - news) and E*Trade Group Inc (NasdaqNM:EGRP - news), finished the morning session ask-only at 81,500 yen, down by its daily limit of 5,000 yen from Monday's close.
Toshiaki Iba, a senior analyst at Tokyo Mitsubishi Securities, said the shares might fall as low as 50,000 yen before staging a rebound.
Softbank's decline from a high of 198,000 yen reached on February 15 set in as investors had second thoughts about sky-high Net share valuations and took profits ahead of the end of the business year on March 31.
But the shares came under additional pressure late last month after a media report said it was considering raising 300 billion yen by issuing new shares, stoking investor concerns over its cash position.
Softbank denied the report, but its subsequent sale of 11.5 percent of its stake in Softbank Technology Corp for 58.99 billion yen kept the concerns alive.
``There are nagging worries over what's forcing Softbank to sell its shareholdings. Some people think Softbank may have expanded its business too much with its purchase of Nippon Credit Bank,' Iba said.
Earlier this year, a consortium led by Softbank won the bidding for Nippon Credit Bank, agreeing to pay 101 billion yen for the failed lender.
Other Japanese Internet shares on Tuesday extended their recent fall on valuation fears, compounded by Nasdaq's fall of 349.15 points or 7.64 percent overnight that came ahead of a federal judge ruling that Microsoft Corp (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) violated U.S. antitrust law. |
