Tepco to sell KDDI stake for ¥186.3 billion

Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) hopes to raise ¥186.3 billion ($2.4 billion) by way of sale of its stake in Japan's second-largest mobile-phone operator, KDDI Corp, its biggest divestment after it said it planned to offload assets to pay compensation for the Fukushima disaster.

In a statement to the Tokyo stock exchange, Tepco, which holds around 8 per cent in KDDI, said it plans to book a ¥35.1-billion loss on the transaction.

Bloomberg reported that the sale would be effected today to KDDI on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Trading Network System at ¥521,000 a share, the same as yesterday's close.

Tepco has been divesting its stock investments since the 11 March earthquake and tsunami that hit its Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear station, leading to the worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

Tepco's compensation liabilities  have been estimated at ¥4.5 trillion in the first two years of the disaster, according to a report from a government panel that went through the company's finances.

KDDI now plans to raise around ¥201 billion from a sale of convertible bonds to buy back its shares from Tepco.