Bain Capital announced Monday plans to acquire T-Gaia, the largest cellphone retailer in Japan, by purchasing stakes from major shareholders Sumitomo Corp. and Tokyo-based Hikari Tsushin.

The estimated total purchase price exceeds 140 billion yen (approximately US$980 million).

As of 31 March, T-Gaia operated 1,781 retail outlets for major telecom providers, including NTT Docomo, KDDI, and SoftBank.

The company is currently listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Prime market, with Sumitomo holding 41.8% of its shares and Hikari Tsushin and its subsidiaries owning nearly 30%.

T-Gaia generates over 80% of its total revenue from phone and gadget sales, which reported a consolidated net profit of 7 billion yen for the fiscal year ending 31 March, reflecting a 12% decrease from the previous year.