Ah Gerhard,
I had guessed that you would be one of the first to comment on this. The
truth is, that a year ago when you made the comment it missed the mark. It
was, and is, much less about Softbank wanting to buy, which has been the
case for some time, as Vodafone wanting to sell. A year ago when you made
the comment, a clear decision had been made to not sell. So, it was denied,
properly, because it was not being considered. In the last three months it
has been clear to insiders who cared to open their eyes (not a terribly high
percentage) that a sale would take place. Thus my occupancy of a new bit of
real estate ;-)
I am going to be interested to see whether Softbank chooses to keep the
Vodafone brand. Re-branding at this point, when mobile number portabilitly
is only seven months off, could pose some major risks. At the same time, if
you believe the press (which in this case I don't), the foreign branding was
part of Vodafone K.K.'s problem. So what do they call Yahoo!, or as it is
called in Japan, Yafoo!? Just looking at that, and the worldwide reach of
the Vodafone brand, which Softbank have show that they value, I would be
surprised to see a change in brand, even though ownership may change.
Similarly, Japanese labor practises make it difficult to do mass firings, so
you will have a lot of the same people running things. That is as big a risk
as rebranding.
We live in interesting times.
-Nik Frengle
On 3/6/06, Gerhard Fasol <fasol@eurotechnology.com> wrote:
>
> Maybe this interests some people on the list:
>
> it looks very likely that Vodafone will sell practically all of
> its Japan operations to Softbank -
>
> see:
> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000101&sid=aWZqM02z5LAg
>
> I predicted this in an interview with Bloomberg about one year ago -
> at that time it was denied, but it seems to be happening now:
> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?
> pid=email_us&refer=uk&sid=aO1q4H95o.KA
>
> Gerhard
>
>
>
> This mail was sent to address nfrengle@gmail.com
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>
Received on Mon Mar 6 12:31:30 2006