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Press Releases 2001

SOFTBANK announces a partial sale of its holding in Yahoo! Inc.

Dec. 28, 2001

SOFTBANK announces that SOFTBANK America Inc. (Headquarter: Delaware, U.S.A., Representative: Masayoshi Son, “SBA”) agreed to sell a part of its holding in Yahoo! Inc. (“Yahoo!”) to SBC Communications Inc. (“SBC”) subject to certain conditions.

SBA will sell 17,290,866 shares of Yahoo!, for an aggregate purchase price of approximately US$300,000,000 (translated amount in yen: approximately 39.4 billion yen, exchange rate: $1=131.54 yen). Gain on sale of such shares is expected to be approximately 27 billion yen. SOFTBANK’s stake in Yahoo! will decrease from approximately 20% to approximately 17% after the transaction.

The sale is to strengthen the Yahoo! and SBC business relationship announced in November, 2001, therefore fortifying our broadband strategy as a group. SBA continues to be the largest shareholder of Yahoo! and this sale does not influence our relationship with Yahoo!.

In addition to the expected proceeds of 39.4 billion yen from the sale, SOFTBANK has already received approximately 18.1 billion yen and 6.2 billion yen from sale of shares of E*Trade Group Inc. and CNET Networks Inc., respectively. Also, Key3Media Group, Inc. (“K3M”) was excluded from consolidation and accounted for the equity method due to sale of shares of K3M by SBA and ownership dilution caused by K3M’s issuance of new shares at the end of last month. Therefore, net debt of approximately 33 billion yen of K3M as of September 30, 2001 will not be recognized for the fiscal year 2002 results. We expect to reduce net debt of nearly 100 billion yen in total. As a result, we expect to improve our financial condition dramatically.

[Note]
  • *SOFTBANK does not have any interest in SBC Communications Inc.

This Press Release may contain “material information” as definedin Article 166 of the Securities and Exchange Law (“Material Information”). Please note that any person who has obtained information by reading a Press Release (including this one) containing Material Information may be subject to the “Insider Trading” Law if such person engages in purchase or sale of securities of the Company and/or affiliates thereof, within twelve (12) hours of the release of such Material Information pursuant to the Cabinet Order for Enforcement of the Securities and Exchange Law.

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