SoftBank May Sell Part of T-Mobile Stake to Raise Cash

Analysts said Tuesday reports that SoftBank will sell up to two-thirds of its stake in T-Mobile make sense as the Japanese company raises cash for other ventures. New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin said T-Mobile will likely buy at least 7% of the shares to take its stake above 50%, with the balance sold to the public. “This is not overly surprising news and has been speculated in the wake of SoftBank's deleveraging,” Wells Fargo’s Jennifer Fritzsche told investors. “This news is driven more by factors surrounding SoftBank's balance sheet than any underlying issues” at T-Mobile, she said. SoftBank bought a big stake in Sprint in 2012, its major foray into the U.S. wireless sector. SoftBank and T-Mobile didn’t comment.