Recent Yahoo sale news has revealed that Softbank has no plans to bid for the company. The Japanese banking group recently sold part of its shares in Alibaba.
Reuters reported that Softbank Group Corp has debunked speculations that it will be using funds raised from its recent sale of Alibaba shares to buy assets from Yahoo Inc. The telecom's president, Nikesh Arora, made the announcement on Wednesday.
"We intend to use the capital proceeds to manage our leverage and our balance sheet, which does not include expanding and buying things in the U.S.," he said. "I can unequivocally say we are not involved in the process that Yahoo Inc is running in any way, shape or form."
According to Yahoo News, Softbank will be selling about $7.9 billion of shares in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to raise funds to pay for debts. This transaction is the first sale of the Chinese ecommerce company's shares by its largest stakeholder.
Softbank's Alibaba stake will decrease to about 28 percent of the Chinese firm from 32.2 percent in March. The two companies have confirmed that they will keep their strategic partnership.
Softbank chairman and chief executive Masayoshi Son will still be a director at Alibaba. Meanwhile, Alibaba executive chairman Jack Ma will remain on Softbank's board.
On Tuesday, Alibaba's shares fell by about 2.8 percent in extended trading. Alibaba has said that it will buy $2 billion worth of its shares with cash on hand.
In other Yahoo sale news by The Verge, the Internet giant has recently published three national security letters about controversial government demands regarding information disclosure. The company wrote in a statement that the letters were published due to changes made by the USA Freedom Act made it compulsory for the FBI to review nondisclosure requirements.
"Yahoo has always maintained a strong commitment to protecting our users' safety, security and privacy," the company wrote on its policy page. "We believe there is value in making these documents available to the public to promote an informed discussion about the legal authorities available to law enforcement."
