Business

SoftBank Corp shares drop 14% on their first day of trading,

Published

7 years ago

December 20, 2018

but it’s still one of the largest IPOs ever

SoftBank Corp.’s initial public offering today started with a bang before trailing off into a whimper. The company is the mobile unit of SoftBank Group, whose holdings also include Sprint and the $100 billion Vision Fund.

Softbank is the sixth-largest telephone operating company by total revenue ($74.7 B USD). The top 10 telephone operating companies are: AT&T, Verizon Communications, Tata Group, Nippon Telegraph & Tel, Deutsche Telekom, Softbank, Telefónica, Reliance Jio, Vodafone, América Móvil.

On May 31, 2016 SoftBank announced to sell a stake in Alibaba. SoftBank said that it planned to sell approximately $8 billion of its shares in Alibaba. The reason: The Japanese company is seeking to pay down some of its hefty debt load.