Softbank to buy C&W Japan

Filed in archive Global Economy on October 27, 2004

Eurotechnology reports about Softbanks most recent acquisition Cable & Wireless - IDC in japan:

"Nikkei reported the following data for C&W-IDC:
Sales in fiscal 2003/2004: YEN 713 OKU (= US$ 645 million)
Losses in fiscal 2003/2005: YEN 616.7 OKU (= US$ 557 million)
Customers: 40,000 companies
Employees: 600
C&W had acquired IDC in a spectacular hostile take-over in 1999. It was one of the few hostile take-overs which had ever happened in Japan.

The enormous losses show that C&W did not have much choice apart from closing down operations in Japan. Softbank of course has a completely different perspective. While C&W was running C&W-IDC as a traditional legacy niche-telco, Masayoshi Son will integrate C&W-IDC's business into his emerging fully IP mega telecom operator. Integrating C&W-IDC into Nihon-Telecom (earlier acquired from J-Phone/Vodafone via Ripplewood) will immediately result in large cost savings, and bundling with YAHOO-BB, YAHOO and later with 3G-mobile will enable a variety of new business models.

Cable & Wireless is closing operations in Japan, except for a small support desk for global customers."

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