According to the Wall Street Journal, sources claims that SoftBank intends to offload a significant portion" of its T-Mobile US to Deutsche Telekom AG.
Should the deal go ahead, Deutsche Telekom's stake in the newly merged T-Mobile US, would be above 50%.
Full details of how much of SoftBanks 24% in T-Mobile US, has not been disclosed. Nor how much it will be selling for.
The news follows SoftBank’s intention of selling $41 billion (JPY4.5 trillion) in assets in order to pay down its debts, bond buybacks and increase its cash reserves.
Of course, this all follows the $26.5 billion merger of T-Mobile US with Sprint in early April. But according to Capacity’s sources, Sprint’s wholesale division will adopt the T-Mobile brand, but the unit will not be folded into Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier.
In related news, Jack Ma co-founder of Alibaba Group Holding, would step down from SoftBank’s board of directors after 13 years.
Having joined the board back in 2007 and also stepped down as chairman of Alibaba in 2019.
The announcement occurred during SoftBank’s annual earnings call, where it reported a staggering $18 billion (JPY1.9 trillion) operating loss from its Saudi-backed company Vision Fund, including losses of almost $10 billion investments at companies WeWork and Uber leaving SoftBank with a total annual loss of JPY1.4 trillion.
At the same time the company proposed three new directors in place of Ma. Yoshimitsu Goto SoftBank’s CFO, Cadence CEO and Walden International Founder Lip-Bu Tan, and Yuko Kawamoto professor at Waseda Business School.
