
SOFTBANK announces that SOFTBANK America Inc. (Headquarter: Delaware, U.S.A., Representative: Masayoshi Son, hereinafter called “SBA”) sold a part of its holding in Yahoo! Inc. (hereinafter called “Yahoo”) in order to improve SOFTBANK’s financial condition.
SBA sold 11,500,000 shares of Yahoo, for an aggregate purchase price of approximately US$171,000,000 (Translated amount in yen: approximately 22.4 billion yen, exchange rate: $1=131.00 yen). Gain on sale of such shares is expected to be approximately 15.7 billion yen.
It is expected that Yahoo will not be accounted for an equity-method affiliate on a consolidation basis as SOFTBANK’s stake in Yahoo decreased to approximately 14.3% due to the above transaction together with the earlier sale to SBC Communications, Inc. in January 2002. SBA continues to be the largest shareholder of Yahoo and this sale does not influence our relationship with Yahoo as one of our most important partners. We will continue to seek synergy with Yahoo.
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