SoftBank raises stake in Sprint

JAPANESE internet and solar company SoftBank Group is raising its stake in Sprint Corporation after merger talks with T-Mobile collapsed, signalling its commitment to a turnaround at the US wireless carrier. Tokyo-based SoftBank reported yesterday that JulySeptember net profit tumbled to ¥113 billion (R14.07bn) from ¥528bn a year ago. Quarterly sales rose nearly 4 percent to ¥2.23 trillion on improved results at Sprint, as well as revenue from Arm, a British chips company SoftBank acquired last year. Helping bring profit lower was the absence of last year’s foreignexchange gains, as well as derivative losses that came from its sale of part of its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. T-Mobile and Sprint are the third- and fourthlargest wireless carriers, respectively, in the US, but they are significantly smaller than AT&T and Verizon.