SoftBank, Naver JV to tender minor stake in Line operator's $1 bln buyback (updated)

LY

02/08/2024 09:07

(Adds SoftBank, Naver responses, paragraph 4)
       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 voting rights 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.
    Naver referred to LY's disclosure when asked for comment.
SoftBank did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
($1 = 148.7500 yen)

 (Reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo and Kantaro Komiya; Additional
reporting by Joyce Lee in Seoul; Editing by Muralikumar
Anantharaman)
 ((Kantaro.Komiya@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @kantarokomiya;))