Rating Cut Hits SoftBank Shares
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average declined, led by Softbank Corp. after Credit Suisse Group cut its rating on the stock, citing a drop in the value of the company’s investments and its mobile phone business. Softbank shares slid 65 yen, or 2.8 percent, to 2,245. Hitoshi Hayakawa, a Tokyo-based analyst at Credit Suisse cut his rating to underperform from neutral. Softbank’s measures to improve the mobile business are not enough to justify a 1 trillion yen ($8.6 billion) premium, Hayakawa said.
The full Bloomberg story is Here.
The article makes no mention of the recent Nikkei survey which predicted a 17% net loss of current Vodafone Japan susbscibers as a potential impact from mobile number portability set to begin Oct. 24th. Considering the stakes it would be reasonable to expect that the carriers and anyalsts all have their own extensive internal polls on this issue. We expect to see some real fireworks come Oct. 1st when Vodafones brand is finally buried and SoftBank Mobile officially launches. It’s going to be very interesting to see how they plan to splash (or crash) into the market.. a topic we will cover in detail as it develops.