SoftBank, Naver JV to tender 2% stake in Line operator's $1 bln buyback

LY

02/08/2024 08:32

TOKYO, Aug 2 (Reuters) - A joint venture of Japan's
SoftBank Corp  9434.T  and South Korea's Naver  035420.KS  will
sell back about 2% of its 64.42% stake in LY Corp  4689.T ,
which operates the popular messaging app Line, LY said in a
share buyback disclosure on Friday.
    The stake of LY owned by the SoftBank-Naver venture "A
Holdings" will be down to 62.50% when LY's 150 billion yen
($1.01 billion) buyback program is completed, the company said.
    The buyback is intended to increase the liquidity of its
shares to the levels mandated by the Tokyo Stock Exchange for
companies listed on its Prime Market and unrelated to the Line
data leak issue, an LY spokesperson said.
($1 = 148.7500 yen)

 (Reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo and Kantaro Komiya; Editing by
Muralikumar Anantharaman)
 ((Kantaro.Komiya@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @kantarokomiya;))