Softbank to sell assets worth $41 billion to reduce debt

Tokyo, Mar 23 (efe-epa).- Japanese technology conglomerate Softbank (SBG) announced Monday that it will divest assets worth nearly $41 billion and buy back shares valued at some $18 billion.

The money will be used to considerably reduce the consortium’s debts in order to equilibrate its balance sheets, Softbank announced in a statement, which it disseminated shortly before the Tokyo Stock Exchange session ended.

“This program will be the largest share buyback and will result in the largest increase in cash balance in the history of SBG, reflecting the firm and unwavering confidence we have in our business,” SBG Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son said in a statement.

The statement said that the sale or monetization of assets will reach up to 4.5 trillion yen ($40.93 billion), while the share repurchase will amount to around 2 trillion yen .

The statement underlined that the balance will be used for “debt redemptions, bond buybacks and increase cash reserves,” and that the transactions will be executed over the next four quarters.

According to Son, the monetization of assets represents less than 20 percent of the company’s current asset value.

Moreover, the company believed that its shares were substantially undervalued, the statement said.

At the end of the day’s operations at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Softbank recorded gains of 18.6 percent, most of which were recorded after the asset sales and share repurchase program was made public.

The conglomerate’s shares had fallen by more than 50 percent of their value between the end of February and Thursday due to concerns about the performance of the companies in which it has invested. EFE-EPA

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