Major Shake-up at Faith
Several sources are reporting that Intel Capital and Yoshimoto Kogyo have bought a small stake in Faith Inc.. Last week Faith’s U.S. arm Moderati was sold to Bellrock Media, as pointed out in the most recent Mobile Music Watch newsletter; “Following its board meeting last Friday, Faith Inc. announced that co-founder and COO Makoto Nakanishi will resign from the company and acquire 100% of its struggling US subsidiary Faith Communications.”. According to their statement, the US subsidiary is losing money and plagued with problems, including a postponed trial launch of its Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) service and heavy capital requirements.
This development is sure to impact many of the players involved – past and present – perhaps one of the better supporting examples for the mobile web 2.0 folks to point-out.
Intel, Yoshimoto Buy Total of Four Percent Stake in Faith
Faith has taken a 12.4 percent stake in Yoshimoto Group service provider Fandango. Meanwhile, Yoshimoto has agreed to buy a 4.6 percent stake in Giga Networks, a Faith Group content provider that plans to broadcast content featuring Yoshimoto talent to mobile device users. Also see this article from Variety.