Z Holdings, the Chinese e-commerce company owned by SoftBank (SFTB.Y 1.24%), is aiming to issue as much as 200 billion yen or $1.86 billion in new debt.
Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported the unit of SoftBank’s telecom business in Japan is mulling selling bonds with maturities ranging from 1.5 to ten years.
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If the yen-denominated offering comes to fruition it would be among the largest for the fiscal year kicking off on April 1, reported Bloomberg.
Z Holdings has been a bright spot for SoftBank amid the COVID-19 pandemic. While many of the investments in its Vision Fund have suffered steep losses, Z Holdings has benefited during the pandemic thanks to stay-at-home orders, reporting increased profits for its fiscal year 2019 which was complete at the end of March. SoftBank’s head Masayoshi Son is banking on Z Holdings morphing into an e-commerce leader and is reportedly bringing Z Holdings and Line, the messaging app in Japan, under one business later in 2020, noted Bloomberg.
In an effort to shore up cash, earlier this year SoftBank announced it planned to sell more than $41 billion in assets. For the fiscal year ended March 31, the Vision Fund reported a loss of 1.9 trillion yen or close to $18 billion, due in large part to writedowns in its investments in WeWork and Uber Technologies. Among the assets SoftBank is eyeing is stakes in T-Mobile USA and its wireless business in Japan. Once it sells 240 million shares of the wireless business or about 5% of its holding, it will own 62.1% of the operations.
