Softbank might IPO its Japanese telecoms unit, then again it might not

In response to a report claiming it’s going to flog $18 billion of shares in its Japanese mobile units. Softbank has said it might, but no decision has been made yet.

The report was brought us by Japanese business title Nikkei, which chatted to someone who reckons SoftBank Group aims to list its Japanese mobile phone unit in Tokyo and overseas this year. The un-named source also reckons the amount of money raised by such an IPO is likely to be in the region of two trillion yen, which is about $18 billion.

Softbank felt moved to respond to this piece of rumour-mongering, issing the following statement: “With regard to today’s Nikkei report on the listing of SoftBank Corp., a subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp., we are always studying various capital strategy options. The listing of SoftBank Corp. shares is one such option, but no decision has been made to officially proceed with this course.”

SoftBank is the third of three major Japanese MNOs with around 24% subscriber market share according to Ovum’s WCIS service. Narrowly ahead is KDDI and the market leader is NTT DoCoMo. But SoftBank Group also owns Sprint, ARM and a bunch of other stuff, as well as being hyperactive in the general tech VC space. So it’s perfectly plausible that it might want to raise a few extra yen, but right now nothing has been decided. You can read further analysis on Light Reading here.