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The logo of Japanese mobile giant NTT Docomo is displayed at a shop in Tokyo.
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TOKYO — NTT Docomo Inc., Japan’s top cellphone service provider, said it planned to return to 100% control by its parent, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., in a deal expected to cost the parent nearly $40 billion.
The parent NTT owned 66.2% of Docomo’s voting rights as of March 31. Docomo said Tuesday that NTT planned to take 100% control. It said its board would vote on the plan later in the day. The Nikkei newspaper and other Japanese media earlier reported the plan.
Publicly traded Docomo shares were collectively valued at nearly $30 billion as of the close of Monday’s trading. Assuming NTT pays a premium to acquire all the shares, it could spend close to $40 billion.
Shares of the parent NTT 9432, -0.55% were down about 3% in morning trading in Tokyo. Docomo shares 9437, +2.35% weren’t trading yet because of a flood of buy orders. The deal would end a 22-year experiment that began when fixed-line telephone service was still the NTT conglomerate’s core business and mobile phones were owned by relatively few people.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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