Japan’s Softbank is acquiring smaller rival EMOBILE in a deal that would make it the country’s second-largest mobile operator behind NTT Docomo. The carrier [Softbank] is paying 180.2 billion JPY (about $2.3 billion) to buy stock in eAccess, the firm behind EMOBILE.
According to Reuters, the 52,000 JPY per share deal represents a premium of more than three times eAccess’ stock price of 15,070 JPY. All that extra cash is justified with benefits coming from EMOBILE’s existing customer base, and Softbank Mobile’s founder Masayoshi Son thinks shareholders will love the deal.
Total synergies are estimated at 360 billion JPY, made up of customer base expansion (200 billion JPY), network sharing (110 billion JPY) and “other management efficiencies” (50 billion JPY).
Softbank had 34.9 million subscribers at end-August, while EMOBILE had 4.2 million, bringing Softbank’s new total to 39.1 million, which is more than KDDI’ 35.9 million subscribers.
[Via: MobileBusinessBriefing]