(Getty Images/Tomohiro Ohsumi)
Japan’s state-backed telecom company Nippon Telegraph & Telephone is looking to take its mobile unit NTT-Docomo private, adding to a busy year for blockbuster telecom deals. The transaction, which will see NTT buy the 34% stake it does not own, could value the business at 4.25 trillion yen (about $40.2 billion). NTT said in a statement it would pay 3,900 yen per NTT-Docomo share, a 40% premium to the stock’s Tuesday opening price.
The deal comes just a month after telecoms multinational Liberty Global bought Swiss rival Sunrise Communications for 6.8 billion Swiss francs (about $7.4 billion). Liberty Global also inked a deal in May with Telefónica to merge the companies’ UK operations Virgin Media and O2 to create a telecom business worth a reported £31.4 billion (about $39 billion). Prior to that, T-Mobile and Sprint cleared the final hurdle in April for their $23 billion merger.
NTT-Docomo—which has its own venture capital arm—spun off from NTT in 1991 and went public in 1998, shortly after the Asian financial crisis. At the time it was the biggest-ever IPO. Earlier this month, Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga had promised to lower mobile phone tariffs. If successful in its bid, NTT could push NTT-Docomo to lower its fees, potentially triggering a price war among the country’s carriers.
Learn about our editorial standards.
