Masayoshi Son
PER
Masayoshi Son Son
Softbank, the Japanese Internet company, will buy Vodafone's Japanese cellphone unit in a deal worth $15.4 billion. The sale will create a communications giant in Japan by giving Softbank and its billionaire chief executive, Masayoshi Son, control of the country's third-largest mobile carrier, with 15 million subscribers. Mr. Son said that they can start from a far bigger base than if they had to begin from scratch and that Softbank would borrow as much as 1.2 trillion yen ($10.3 billion) to finance the purchase, which will give his company a 97.68 percent share of Vodafone's Japan unit.