Japan's top cable provider turns a little more foreign

[Mulboyne]

BizJournals: Liberty forms Japanese holding company
Liberty Media International has joined forces with Sumitomo Corp. to form a media holding company which will hold a majority stake in Japan's largest cable provider. The new entity, LMI/Sumisho Super Media LLC, will hold a 65 percent ownership in Jupiter Telecommunications Co. Ltd.
Englewood-based Liberty will own a 45 percent stake in the Japanese conglomerate while Sumitomo will contribute 20 percent ownership to the arrangement. Under the agreement, Super Media will be managed by a management committee consisting of two members -- one appointed by both Liberty and Sumitomo. If Jupiter launches an initial public offering of its shares, the management committee member appointed by Liberty will have a casting or deciding vote with respect to most management committee decisions.
Liberty will indirectly control Jupiter through its interest in Super Media if its casting vote becomes effective. Super Media would dissolve five years after Liberty's casting vote becomes effective, unless Liberty and Sumitomo agree to extend the term of the agreement. Controlled by cable pioneer John Malone, Liberty spun off from Liberty Media Corp. earlier this year. Malone has said he's interested in consolidating cable properties in Japan.

[Mulboyne]

Bloomberg: Jupiter, Holder to Sell 83.6 Bln Yen Shares in Initial Offer
Jupiter Telecommunications Co., Japan's largest cable television provider, and a shareholder will sell 83.6 billion yen ($792.5 million) of shares to the public in an offer that will give control to John Malone's Liberty Media International Inc...The sale will give Liberty International a pipeline to 1.9 million Japanese households and let it add Jupiter's earnings to its own accounts, according to the Web site of Malone's global holding company.

[Mulboyne]

While the heart attacks continue over Livedoor and the possible "foreign" involvement, Liberty carries on with their plan to dominate Japanese cable business and no-one bats an eye.

Bloomberg via IHT: Japanese cable TV company lifts IPO target
Jupiter Telecommunication, Japan's largest cable television provider, said Thursday that, together with a shareholder, it would raise as much as 95.6 billion in an initial public offering, 14 percent higher than an earlier target. Jupiter said it would price the shares for the offering, worth $912 million, at between 70,000 and 80,000 each. The target had been 70,000, according to documents distributed in February.
The share offering, which is the largest in Japan this year, will give control of Jupiter to John Malone's Liberty Media International, part of his strategy to consolidate the earnings of his global cable assets. Jupiter is the first Japanese cable television operator to go public. Jupiter will sell one million new shares and Microsoft, which owns a 19.5 percent stake as the second-largest stakeholder, will offer 102,921 shares.
Jupiter, founded in 1995, offers broadband Internet and telephone service under the J-Com brand. The company served 1.9 million households at the end of December, 7 percent more than a year earlier, according to the company's Web site. Of those, 1.6 million subscribed to its cable TV service, while 761,400 had broadband Internet and 773,000 had telephone services...Jupiter Telecommunications expects net income to rise 29.4 percent to 14 billion for calendar 2005, on sales of 185 billion, up 14.7 percent.

[GuyJean]

While the heart attacks continue over Livedoor and the possible "foreign" involvement, Liberty carries on with their plan to dominate Japanese cable business and no-one bats an eye..

It's perplexing.. The media gets fixated on one thing and end up missing other, quite possilbly more important stories... The media needs a good douche.. Wonder if Livedoor has a 'fresh scent'.

GJ

[dimwit]

So I guess the question is who or what is 'Liberty Media International'? Like Ripplewood I've never heard of them.

[Mulboyne]

So I guess the question is who or what is 'Liberty Media International'? Like Ripplewood I've never heard of them.

Liberty's website is fairly informative. Here's one independent profile, a little out of date:

Liberty was described by Microsoft's Slate magazine in 2004 as "a strange hybrid&#8212] CEO John Malone (described by Al Gore as the "Darth Vader of cable"), is often spoken of as a genuine rival to Murdoch and News Corp. Partly because most other media moguls are in their seventies. One other quotation from the profile is

Leo Kirch likens Murdoch to a shark, always dangerous, always on the move. By contrast, Malone is a swamp alligator, content to lie secreted in the mud, to let the prey come to him.

[dimwit]

Liberty was described by Microsoft's Slate magazine in 2004 as "a strange hybrid&#8212] CEO John Malone (described by Al Gore as the "Darth Vader of cable"), is often spoken of as a genuine rival to Murdoch and News Corp. Partly because most other media moguls are in their seventies. One other quotation from the profile is

Leo Kirch likens Murdoch to a shark, always dangerous, always on the move. By contrast, Malone is a swamp alligator, content to lie secreted in the mud, to let the prey come to him.

Boy, THAT'S REASSURING

[Mulboyne]

Leo Kirch likens Murdoch to a shark, always dangerous, always on the move. By contrast, Malone is a swamp alligator, content to lie secreted in the mud, to let the prey come to him.

Boy, THAT'S REASSURING

I think it does explain how he operates under the radar, even in Japan. By contrast, Murdoch has dabbled in Asahi TV, Avex and SkyPerfect and backed away from all three.

[Mulboyne]

Reuters: Matsushita to sell cable TV stake to Jupiter

Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. will sell its stake in cable television operator Cable West Inc. to Jupiter Telecommunications Co., a source close to the matter said on Monday. Closely held Cable West mainly operates in western Japan, around Osaka. Matsushita is its biggest shareholder, according to its Web site. Jupiter, Japan's biggest cable company, was set up by cable pioneer John Malone's media conglomerate Liberty Media and Sumitomo Corp. The network has been expanding its reach on acquisitions of smaller operators. Tokyo-based Jupiter, also known as J-Com, has more than 2.2 million subscribers. According to business daily Nihon Keizai, J-Com will spend 50 billion yen to buy Matsushita's holdings in Cable West. Jupiter plans to buy more shares from minor shareholders, the newspaper said.

[Mulboyne]

J:Com has taken over yet another local cable operator. This time one in Fukuoka (PDF).

[Mulboyne]

Liberty is selling up:

WSJ: Liberty Global to Sell Stake in Jupiter

International cable company Liberty Global Inc. has reached a deal to sell its stake in a Japanese telecommunications-services provider for $4 billion, a transaction that will help it focus on consolidation of the European cable-TV industry. Liberty Global, which is controlled by John Malone, will sell its 37.8% stake in Jupiter Telecommunications Inc. to KDDI Corp., the second-largest telecommunications company in Japan.

Jupiter provides Internet, cable-TV and mobile-phone services across Japan. KDDI offers many of the same services, along with satellite communications. The $4 billion purchase price would represent a 65% premium over Jupiter's closing share price Friday. Colorado-based Liberty Global is focused outside the U.S. It has annual sales around $11 billion with 17 million cable subscribers in Europe, Japan and Australia. Mr. Malone's other big company, Liberty Media Corp., is focused inside the U.S.

"We are clearly shifting our resources toward Europe. After this deal and if Unity is approved, it will be 85% of our business," said Mike Fries, chief executive officer of Liberty Global, referring to a pending purchase of Unity Media GmbH of Germany. "This transaction gives us further liquidity and capital to repurchase our stock and consolidate in our core markets."

Liberty had a partnership agreement with Sumitomo Corp., which held about 26% of Jupiter, to oversee the publicly traded company. That deal was set to expire late next month, and Mr. Fries said his firm had been exploring what to do with the stake for several months. "KDDI approached us and it all came together quite quickly," Mr. Fries said
...more...

[Mulboyne]

WSJ: Japanese Regulator Examines KDDI's Planned Deal for Jupiter

Japan's Financial Service Agency is examining whether KDDI Corp.'s planned $4 billion purchase of a major stake in Jupiter Telecommunications Co. from Liberty Global Inc. violates share transaction law, according to a person familiar with the matter. If the FSA's examination of the deal expands to a formal investigation, it could pose a potential hurdle to Liberty's exit from the Japanese market as the company looks to shift resources toward the European cable-TV industry.

KDDI, Japan's No.2 cable-television company by subscribers, said the FSA made inquiries regarding the Jupiter transaction, but the agency has not conducted a search of KDDI's office, usually one of the steps in a full-scale investigation. KDDI said it believes the arrangement related to the Jupiter share purchase is in line with the rules. A spokesman at the FSA declined to comment. Officials at Liberty and Jupiter couldn't immediately be reached.

The matter at hand is whether KDDI's planned acquisition of a 38% stake in Jupiter from Liberty, announced last week, violates Japan's Financial Instruments and Exchange Law. The law requires transactions under which more than one-third of a listed company's ownership changes hands to be done through a tender offer bid. A tender would allow all of the company's shareholders a chance to sell their shares. That could make the offer prohibitively expensive, since KDDI paid a 65% premium to purchase Liberty's stake and remaining shareholders would likely want to participate.

Under the structure of the deal, KDDI is indirectly buying the shares, a structure that could put the deal in a legal gray area. According to the details of the deal, KDDI is acquiring three units of Liberty Global, which together hold a 38% share in Jupiter.

A local media report said Tuesday that Japanese authorities might seek a fine, though the report couldn't be verified. A penalty would inflate the price of the deal for KDDI, making it much more expensive for the company to proceed with the deal, which was expected to close in mid-February. It might also open the company to litigation from other Jupiter shareholders.

The deal with Jupiter would give the combined group roughly half of Japan's cable-TV market. It sets up a two-horse race between industry behemoth Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. and KDDI to offer bundled high-speed broadband, phone and video services.