Following the acquisition of an 80% stake in US carrier Sprint Japan's SoftBank shells out $1.26 billion for 57% of Brightstar, the mobile distributor handling the SoftBank trade-in and phone buyback programs.
Once a small mobile device trader operating mainly in S. American countries, Miami-based Brightstar currently operates in 50 countries. It has boasts pre-tax revenues worth over $7 billion for the fiscal year ending June 2013, and counts Motorola, BlackBerry, Apple, HTC, LG and Samsung as customers.
"Brightstar has been a model of innovation, transforming from a regional wireless distributor into the world's leading provider of services to the wireless industry and we are excited about what that will mean for the SoftBank Group," CEO Masayoshi Son says.
The deal has SoftBank buying up to 70% of Brightstar over the next 5 years. Brightstar founder Marcelo Claure retains his post as CEO, with Son as chairman.
Brightstar is actually the second SoftBank acquisition from the past week-- the company also acquired 51% of Finnish mobile games developer Supercell (of Hay Day and Clash of Clans fame) for $1.5bn.