Japan’s Softbank is reportedly closing in on a deal to buy a quarter of Swiss Re. But the result is far from a foregone conclusion.
Tokyo-based Softbank is negotiating on buying a stake worth $9.6 billion in Swiss Re, a deal that would value the reinsurer at about $39 billion, according to a «Bloomberg» report. The valuation under negotiation represents a premium of as much as 16 percent over the share valuation on February 7 before the Swiss company announced it was in talks with Softbank.
The proposed deal, reported earlier by finews.asia, is the latest by Chief Executive Masayoshi Son in his bid to move Softbank further away from its roots in mobile phones into holding stakes in everything from Uber and Alibaba to U.K. software giant Arm.
Softbank made its first move into the financial sector in February 2017, when it acquired the private-equity firm and asset manager Fortress Investment Group for about $3.3 billion in cash.
