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Doris Yu · · 1 min readSoftBank, Naver turn to ‘squeeze out’ to take Line private
“SoftBank Corp. and Naver Corp. said they would seek to compel Line Corp.’s remaining public shareholders to sell out so the two companies can take the messaging service private,” reported Bloomberg.
SoftBank and Naver made a tender offer to buy shares of the messaging app at a price of 5,380 yen (US$51.2) per share. Some shareholders, however, opposed the offer, as they thought the price was “too low.”
Now, the two firms have turned to a legal move – called a “squeeze out” – to force remaining shareholders to sell.
SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son aims to create “a national champion” by merging his Yahoo Japan internet business with Line, Bloomberg reported. The goal is for the combined company to be able to fight toe to toe against large tech firms like Google and China’s Tencent Holdings. The new entity reportedly aims to spend 100 billion yen (US$950 million) annually to develop AI-powered products.
The proposal, which was announced last November, would see Yahoo Japan and Line share engineering resources, access more data, and make deeper investments in areas like AI, Son said.
According to SoftBank Corp., a total of 31.2 million shares were tendered in its bid with Naver, though the two had said they would be able to buy up to 88.3 million shares.
Currency converted from Japanese yen to US dollar: US$1 = 105.09 yen.
Editing by Jaclyn Teng
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