Internet and telecoms group Softbank has agreed to buy Vodafone's struggling Japanese subsidiary for £8.9 billion.
Vodafone, the world's biggest mobile phone group, said the deal would allow it to return £6 billion of cash to its shareholders.
The British company added that it would take a £4.9 billion impairment charge on the disposal for the year ending March 2006. Vodafone said it expected the transaction to complete in the first quarter of the financial year ending March 31 2007.
Softbank has agreed to buy Vodafone's 98% stake in Vodafone KK, which is Japan's number three mobile operator. Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin called the deal 'a good outcome at an attractive price'.
Softbank is scheduled to start offering mobile services in Japan at the start of 2007 after winning one of three new licences from the government. Buying Vodafone would automatically give it about 15 million customers and the infrastructure to compete with existing operators NTT DoCoMo and KDDI.
A distant third in Japan's mobile phone market, Vodafone had struggled to reverse a decline in subscribers caused in part by its botched rollout of third-generation services which suffered frequent disruptions.
