The Japanese are witnessing a rare spectacle: two of the country's business titans, both with global ambitions, openly jabbing at each other.
In one corner is Masayoshi Son, Japan's second-richest man and president of SoftBank (9984:JP). Besides being the No. 3 mobile carrier in Japan, SoftBank is also the leading shareholder in Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba Group and owns stakes in more than 1,000 Web businesses around the world, including BuzzFeed and Zynga (ZNGA) in the U.S. This summer SoftBank took control of mobile carrier Sprint (S) in a $21.6 billion deal. In the latest sign of Son's determination to expand his reach beyond Japan, SoftBank announced on Oct. 15 it was paying $1.53 billion for 51 percent of Supercell, the Finnish developer of the popular Clash of Clans mobile game. Son is also in talks to buy a stake in Brightstar, a distributor of handsets based in Miami.In the other corner is Hiroshi Mikitani, Japan's third-richest man and founder and chairman of Rakuten (4755:JP), a vast online marketplace that's far bigger in Japan than Amazon.com. (AMZN) A Harvard Business School graduate and former investment banker, Mikitani understands that Rakuten has no future if it remains solely focused on a home market with a rapidly aging population. That's why Rakuten bought U.S. shopping portal Buy.com for $250 million in 2010 and has snapped up other online retailers in Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Rakuten acquired Kobo, a Canadian maker of e-readers, in 2011 and last year led a $100 million investment group buying a minority stake in Pinterest, the Silicon Valley startup that allows user to create digital scrapbooks. Son and Mikitani have billionaire-size egos-and unlike many Japanese businessmen, don't stick to bland talking points. Discussing his motivation for the Sprint takeover, Son told reporters in Tokyo: "I am a man, and I think every man wants to be No. 1." Mikitani, for his part, has made no secret of his desire to take down Jeff Bezos, and before the Japan launch of the Kindle last year, he presented a Japanese publishing executive with a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "Destroy Amazon."
Source: NewsOnJapan
Source: NewsOnJapan
