Rakuten, Inc. (“Rakuten,” Chairman and CEO: Hiroshi Mikitani, Head Office: Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo) and Marubeni Corp. (“Marubeni,” President and CEO: Teruo Asada, Head Office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) today announced that Marubeni has acquired all the new shares issued through third-party allotment by Fusion Communications Inc. (“Fusion,” President and CEO: Takahito Aiki, Head Office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo), a telecommunications carrier subsidiary of Rakuten, and will participate in the management of Fusion.
As a result of the third-party share allotment, Rakuten will have the equity share (the ratio of voting rights) of 50.03% in Fusion and Marubeni 33.34%. As the second largest shareholder, Marubeni will assign one full-time director and two non-executive directors to Fusion in an effort to further strengthen the telecommunications firm’s earnings base.
Since joining the Rakuten Group in August 2007, Fusion has been striving to improve its management structure by focusing on telephone and ISP businesses, leveraging its strong VoIP(*1) technology.
The Marubeni Group expects that its participation in the management of Fusion will produce significant synergies between the existing businesses of its main ICT business-related subsidiaries (including Marubeni Information Systems Co., Ltd., Marubeni Access Solutions Inc. and i2ts, Inc.) and services provided by Fusion. The Rakuten Group, for its part, will continue to carry-out its management responsibility for Fusion as the largest shareholder, and strive to expand the Rakuten Eco-System and earnings by combining the extensive Internet services of the Rakuten Group with Fusion’s communication services.
(*1)VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)：
Technology that allows voice data to be transmitted and received using data transmission systems used over the Internet