SoftBank selects five investment banks as underwriters on mobile IPO

摘要

Japan's SoftBank Group Corp has selected no fewer than five investment banks - Nomura Holdings, Mizuho Financial Group, Deutsche Bank, SMBC Nikko Securities and Goldman Sachs - to act as lead underwriters for the upcoming initial public offering (IPO) of its mobile phone unit, Reuters reports citing an unnamed source. Media representatives for SoftBank and the financial institutions all declined to comment. In January this year SoftBank revealed it was considering listing its domestic wireless business to raise as much as USD18 billion via an IPO to 'accelerate the conglomerate's transformation into one of the world's biggest tech investors'. The following month the Japanese carrier kicked off preparations to list shares of its core telecoms unit, which contributes a third of total consolidated revenues and two-thirds of its profit. More recently, Bloomberg reported that SoftBank now aims to sell around JPY3 trillion (USD27 billion) of shares - the biggest IPO ever -listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in December.