Japanese companies have done a string of deals in the United States this year, but the pact announced Monday is one for the record books.
The agreement by SoftBank to take control of Sprint Nextel is the biggest deal by a Japanese company in the United States since at least 1980, according to Thomson Reuters, which values Monday's deal at $23.3 billion.
That far exceeds the next-largest deal: the $9.8 billion stake that NTT DoCoMo, SoftBank's rival, took in AT&T Wireless in 2000.
The SoftBank deal is also worth more than some recent takeovers, including Takeda Pharmaceutical's 2008 purchase of Millennium Pharmaceuticals for $8.1 billion. It also tops the $7.8 billion agreement that the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group struck with Morgan Stanley in the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, according to Reuters data.
Monday's deal is a welcome development for the financial advisers involved, in a year starved for deal activity.
The agreement ha s lifted Citigroup, an adviser to Sprint, to sixth from seventh place in Thomson Reuters's global league table this year. Sprint's other advisers, UBS and Rothschild, each moved up one spot as well.
One of SoftBank's advisers, the Raine Group, entered this year's worldwide league table in 30th place after the deal. (The deal is the Raine Group's biggest, according to Reuters.) The Mizuho Financial Group, another SoftBank adviser, rose to 17th from 22nd place.
For American consumers, SoftBank is set to be the latest Japanese company to make its mark on daily life in this country.
In 1989, the Mitsubishi Estate Company made headlines with a deal to buy a 51 percent stake in the Rockefeller Group in New York. (The stake eventually grew to 100 percent, after Rockefeller went through bankruptcy.)
One analyst drew a comparison to that deal last week, when Sprint confirmed it was in talks with SoftBank. Craig Moffett, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein, wa s skeptical of the tie-up.
“This is tantamount to Japanese buyers buying Rockefeller Center,†he said.
The year 1989 was also when the Japanese electronics giant Sony took a foothold in Hollywood. Its roughly $4.7 billion purchase of Columbia Pictures Entertainment was a blockbuster at the time.
On Monday, SoftBank's shares fell 5.3 percent, with investors concerned over the company's ability to turn around the ailing Sprint.
| Source: Thomson Reuters | |||
| Oct. 15, 2012 | Sprint Nextel | SoftBank | $23.3 |
| Nov. 30, 2000 | AT&T Wireless Group | NTT DoCoMo | 9.8 |
| April 10, 2008 | Millennium Pharmaceut icals | Mahogany Acquisition (Takeda Pharmaceutical) | 8.1 |
| Sept. 29, 2008 | Morgan Stanley | Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group | 7.8 |
| Sept. 24, 1990 | MCA | Matsushita Electric Industrial | 7.1 |
| May 5, 2000 | Verio | NTT | 6.3 |
| May 29, 2012 | Gavilon Group | Marubeni | 5.6 |
| Feb. 6, 2006 | Westinghouse Electric | Investor Group (Toshiba, The Shaw Group, Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries) | 5.4 |
| July 23, 2008 | Philadelphia Consolidated Holdings | Tokio Marine Holdings | 4.7 |
| Sept. 25, 1989 | Columbia Pictures Entertainment | Sony USA (Sony) | 4.6 |
