Currently valued at $3.1 billion the deal forms part of the company’s plan to sell $41 billion (JPY4.5 trillion) of its assets, which the group intends on using to repurchase up to $18 billion (JPY 2 trillion) of its common stock with the balance to be used for pay down its debt, bond buybacks and increase its cash reserves.
The valuation is based on SoftBank Corp's shares closing at down 0.8% on Friday prior to the announcement at 1,375 yen, giving a 5% stake a market valuation of 330 billion yen or $3.1 billion.
The sale of 240 million shares in SoftBank Corp for an undetermined price is due to close on May 26, leaving SoftBank Group with a remaining 62.1% stake in the wireless carrier.
The news follows reports earlier this week that SoftBank is in talks with Deutsche Telekom to sell its share in T-Mobile US.
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%.
At the same time, Jack Ma co-founder of Alibaba Group Holding, confirmed that he would step down from SoftBank’s board of directors after 13 years.
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.
