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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StanX Long who wrote (62549)	4/1/2002 4:05:57 AM
From: StanX Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

DoCoMo to Write Down Half Its AT&T Wireless Stake (Update2) By Keiko Kambara quote.bloomberg.com Tokyo, April 1 (Bloomberg) -- NTT DoCoMo Inc. may write down as much as half its $10 billion investment in AT&T Wireless Services Inc. after the third-largest U.S. wireless company's shares fell by almost two-thirds, analysts said. The U.S. company's shares ended last week at $8.95, about 62 percent less than what DoCoMo paid for a 16 percent stake in 2000 and 2001. DoCoMo President Keiji Tachikawa has said the No. 1 mobile-phone operator would reassess its AT&T Wireless investment at the end of DoCoMo's fiscal year, which concluded yesterday. AT&T Wireless may account for the bulk of DoCoMo's investment losses after it spent almost 2 trillion yen ($15 billion) on stakes in rival phone operators. DoCoMo joins companies such as Royal KPN NV and France Telecom SA, which are rethinking the value of acquisitions made at the height of takeover frenzy in 1999 and 2000. ``DoCoMo's net earnings are likely to be in the red, which may result in a loss of almost 100 billion yen,'' said Yasumasa Goda, an analyst at Merrill Lynch Japan Ltd. DoCoMo may write down more than 600 billion yen of the value of its AT&T Wireless investment, Goda estimated. DoCoMo will probably take 1 trillion yen in charges related to the reduced value of its investments, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said last week. The company's shares fell 5,000 yen, or 1.4 percent, to 347,000, unchanged since the day before the Nihon Keizai newspaper report. Investors said they expected the writedowns since Tachikawa raised the possibility after DoCoMo's first-half earnings announcement. Industry Woes Merrill's Goda said DoCoMo's investment losses were probably limited to below 800 billion yen because the dollar rose to about 130 yen from 110 yen, when DoCoMo initially bought the shares.