SoftBank Group Corp. today said it has made filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary disclosing that it has acquired additional shares in Sprint Corporation.
As discussed by Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SBG and Chairman of Sprint, on Sprint’s August 4, 2015 earnings call and SBG’s August 6, 2015 earnings briefing, SBG is enthusiastic about Sprint's prospects. The SoftBank Group and Sprint teams have been working closely together on Sprint’s network strategy to enhance Sprint’s competitiveness and reduce its capital expenditures and operating costs. SBG is also supporting the development of leasing programs to accelerate the path to positive cash flow generation.
In light of these and other turnaround initiatives, SBG believes that Sprint shares are fundamentally undervalued. SBG has therefore implemented a program of open market purchases of Sprint's publicly traded shares. Such purchases will be made by SBG’s wholly owned subsidiary, Galaxy Investment Holdings, Inc. As per our Form 4 SEC filing on August 12, 2015 (EDT), Galaxy has purchased 22,873,301 shares at a weighted average price of $3.80, bringing SBG’s share of outstanding shares of Sprint common stock to approximately 80.0%. Any future purchases by Galaxy will be on an opportunistic basis.
SBG’s purchases are intended to be compliant with the Rule 10b-18 safe harbor provision of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. SBG does not contemplate that its ownership of Sprint outstanding common stock will increase to 85% or more as a result of this program.
