Yahoo Japan plans tender offer for retailer Zozo at $3.7bn
Yahoo Japan Corp announced on Thursday a tender offer worth an estimated 400 billion yen ($3.7 billion) for Zozo Inc, a Japanese online retailer started by a celebrity tycoon.
Zozo Chief Executive Yusaku Maezawa told reporters at a Tokyo hotel that he was stepping down to devote more time to training for a trip to the moon in 2023. He has plans to ride on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket.
Maezawa owns nearly 37% of the company and will sell nearly 93 million of his more than 112 million shares, according to the plan. Yahoo Japan will own up to 50.1% under the tender offer, set for early October, it said.
Maezawa, known for lavish spending on artworks by Jean-Michel Basquiat and a Stradivarius violin, said he also intends to announce later plans for another business.
“I was so moved by that feeling of building something from scratch,” he said of starting his company 21 years ago when he still lived with his parents.
“I want to thank all the employees for supporting and following someone who is so lacking like me. We laughed and we cried together. We had fun,” he said, choked with emotion.
Maezawa, 43, started out running an import CD business and played in a rock band before he founding his online fashion business with a shopping site called Zozotown when online retailing was still new in Japan.
Recently he drew attention for his Zozosuit, a so-called wearable technology that takes body measures with a software application so that clothes are made to fit. (AP)