DealBook: China Internet Giant Buys Stake in Search Engine

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DealBook: Verizon Is Expected to Pay $130 Billion for Stake in Vodafone Joint Venture

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DealBook: Verizon in Talks to Buy Vodafone’s Stake in Its Wireless Unit

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DealBook: América Móvil Maneuvers to Allow Bigger Stake in Dutch Operator

DealBook: Alibaba Buys Stake in Sina Weibo, China's Twitter

Vincent Yu/Associated PressJack Ma, the Alibaba chairman, said two platforms would make the mobile Internet a core part of Alibaba’s strategy.

5:32 p.m. | Updated

The Internet giant Alibaba was once known as China’s answer to eBay. Now it is forging closer ties to the country’s counterpart to Twitter.

Alibaba agreed on Monday to buy an 18 percent stake in the Sina Corporation’s Weibo, the most popular of China’s microblogging services, for $586 million. It has the right to raise its stake to 30 percent in the future.

The deal values Weibo at about $3.3 billion — equivalent to Sina’s entire market value as of Friday.

Alibaba and Sina also agreed to cooperate in improving ways to marry social networking with e-commerce, as microblogging services like Sina’s continue to grow in popularity. Sina Weibo said that last year it had more than 46 million daily active users, an increase of 82 percent from the period a year earlier.

That remains a fraction of Twitter’s user base, however. And a recent study of about 30,000 Sina Weibo users found that about 57 percent of the sampled accounts had no measurable activity or posts.

Alibaba continues to grow, most recently being valued by analysts at more than $55 billion. It has reshuffled its management ranks ahead of a much-anticipated initial public offering that could come as soon as this year.

The growth of social networking and its close ties to the continuing boom in mobile Internet usage have prompted a natural response: how to make money from the phenomenon. Sina and Alibaba expect their efforts to yield about $380 million in advertising and commercial revenue for the Weibo service over the next three years.

“We believe that the cooperation of our two robust platforms will bring unique and valuable services to Weibo users, as well as making the mobile Internet a core part of Alibaba’s strategy,” Jack Ma, the Alibaba chairman, said in a statement.

DealBook: Icahn Is Said to Have a Growing Stake in Dell, and No Taste for Buyout

Chip East/ReutersCarl Icahn has gained a major stake in Dell but is dissatisfied with the buyout, according to a person briefed on the matter.

11:17 p.m. | Updated

The shareholder opposition to the $24.4 billion buyout of Dell is growing louder.

Carl C. Icahn, the longtime activist investor, is planning to unveil a major stake in the troubled computer maker, a person briefed on the matter said on Wednesday. As with other investors, he is expected to express dissatisfaction with the price, the person said.

With Mr. Icahn joining the opposition, the Dell deal faces longer odds.

The buyers — the company’s founder, Michael S. Dell, and the private equity firm Silver Lake — contend that the deal is the best option for Dell in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Shares of the company have languished as its core personal computer business has eroded.

But big investors balked at the offer of $13.65 a share, saying it undervalued Dell. Two of the company’s biggest outside investors, Southeastern Asset Management and T. Rowe Price, have already said that they will not support the current bid, as have a handful of smaller shareholders. Together, Southeastern and T. Rowe Price own more than 14 percent of Dell. It is not clear how big a position Mr. Icahn has amassed, although CNBC has reported that his stake is over 6 percent.

As part of the deal agreement, a majority of Dell’s independent shareholders must approve the buyout. Mr. Dell, who controls about 16 percent of outstanding shares, will not get to cast a vote.

Mr. Icahn has already met with advisers to a special committee of Dell’s board to discuss the deal, according to the person briefed on the matter. The directors had asked Mr. Icahn to participate in the process to find potential higher bids, which is scheduled to end on March 22. But Mr. Icahn refused, the person said.

Mr. Icahn could not be reached for comment. Representatives for Dell and Southeastern declined to comment on Mr. Icahn’s plans.

With the pressure mounting, Dell has gone on the defensive.

On Wednesday morning, the special committee issued a statement, telling shareholders that it had fought hard to get the highest price. “We negotiated aggressively to ensure that stockholders received the best possible value,” the committee said.

The committee also said it had requested a number of provisions meant to help any competing bidders make a higher offer. For example, Dell will reward the investment bank Evercore Partners if it finds a better offer.

Several companies already have signed nondisclosure agreements to take a peek at Dell’s books as part of the so-called go-shop period, according to the person briefed on the matter. Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and the Blackstone Group have all expressed interest.

The special committee, which handled the negotiations with Mr. Dell’s group, added that it had considered several possible alternatives to the sale, including a transaction known as a leveraged recapitalization. In such a deal, the company would borrow billions of dollars to pay out a special dividend, but Dell would remain publicly traded.

Both Mr. Icahn and Southeastern have advocated such a move, which they said would generate more value for shareholders. Mr. Icahn has told Dell’s special committee that it should consider paying about $9 a share, while Southeastern has recommended a dividend of $12 a share.

People close to the committee have warned that the company’s shares may tumble if the deal dies. Driving Mr. Dell’s bid is the belief that the company cannot successfully continue its transformation from a PC maker into an enterprise software provider as a public company.

But Southeastern has disagreed, arguing that the company had already begun its turnaround and was worth more than $20 a share.

People close to Southeastern have said that the firm was prepared to risk seeing Mr. Dell’s offer die rather than accept what it believed was an undervalued bid.

For much of the last month, shares in Dell have traded above the offer price, suggesting investors are anticipating an improved offer from its founder. Shares closed on Wednesday at $14.32.

Analysts and people involved in the deal process believe a significant amount of Dell’s shares — over 20 percent, by one count — are now in the hands of hedge funds betting on the buyout’s prospects.

DealBook: Sprint Agrees to Sell Majority Stake to SoftBank

Yoshikazu Tsuno/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDaniel Hesse, left, the chief of Sprint Nextel, and Masayoshi Son, the president of SoftBank, announced the deal in Tokyo on Monday.

4:15 a.m. Monday | Updated

The struggling cellphone service provider Sprint Nextel has agreed to sell 70 percent of itself to SoftBank of Japan for $20.1 billion, its boldest move yet to revive its fortunes.

In a statement on Monday, SoftBank, a big Japanese telecommunications company, said it would pay $8 billion to buy newly issued Sprint stock worth about $5.25 a share. It will then pay $12.1 billion to buy existing stock from other investors at $7.30 a share, a premium to current levels.

The deal remains subject to approval by regulators and Sprint’s shareholders, but has been approved by the boards of both companies, SoftBank said in the statement. The transaction is expected to close in the middle of 2013.

Shares in Sprint have risen 14 percent since the wireless company confirmed on Thursday that it was in negotiations with SoftBank, closing at $5.73 on Friday.

Sprint is also working to gain more control over Clearwire, a wireless broadband company in which it owns a large stake, people familiar with the matter said. But closing the transaction with SoftBank is the biggest priority for now.

Once completed, the deal would give Sprint some much-needed cash as it aims to compete against its bigger rivals, Verizon Wireless and AT&T.

Sprint, which has long struggled to recover from its 2005 merger with Nextel, has been spending billions of dollars to build a next-generation data network to support the latest smartphones like the Apple iPhone 5.

It remains well behind Verizon and AT&T in offering Long-Term Evolution, or LTE, data service, though the company is well ahead of T-Mobile USA, the country’s fourth-largest wireless service provider.

At the same time, Sprint is laboring under nearly $21 billion of debt, some of which is set to mature next year.

And if a proposed merger of T-Mobile and MetroPCS is completed, Sprint will face a tougher competitor in the world of lower-priced cellphone service. Both companies have pitched unlimited data plans to customers at lower costs than those for plans offered by the big two providers.

Sprint has often hinted that deal-making was in its future. Its chief executive, Daniel Hesse, has said that he expects to participate in the industry’s continuing consolidation.

But the deal with SoftBank came as a surprise to many analysts and investors. Until now, the Japanese company has been focused on gaining share in its home market, largely through acquisitions and building out an LTE high-speed data network. And until recently, it had been focused on reducing its enormous debt load, which stood at nearly $13 billion as of June 30.

Shares of SoftBank fell nearly 17 percent after it confirmed the talks last week and dropped another 5.3 percent, closing at 2,268 yen apiece, in trading in Tokyo on Monday.

Still, the Japanese company’s chief executive, Masayoshi Son, has harbored ambitions to move into the much bigger American market. Sprint has been one of the few significant players up for grabs, and may eventually serve as a vehicle for future deals — perhaps even one for the enlarged T-Mobile, several years from now.

The two sides are betting that American government regulators will favor any transaction that strengthens competition, avoiding the harsh opposition to AT&T’s $39 billion bid for T-Mobile last year.

Mr. Son, an Internet entrepreneur, had already broken into an industry dominated by two established rivals when he bought Vodafone’s Japanese arm in 2006. He has steadily built the company into a major new competitor, one poised to become Japan’s second-biggest wireless service provider, after NTT DoCoMo, with the acquisition of a smaller rival, eAccess.

The Raine Group and Mizuho Securities were lead financial advisers to SoftBank. Deutsche Bank also provided legal advice. SoftBank’s legal advisers included Morrison & Foerster as lead counsel, Mori Hamada & Matsumoto as Japanese counsel, Dow Lohnes as regulatory counsel, Potter Anderson Corroon LLP as Delaware counsel, and Foulston & Siefkin LLP as Kansas counsel.

Citigroup, Rothschild and UBS advised Sprint. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom was lead counsel to Sprint. Lawler, Metzger, Keeney & Logan served as regulatory counsel, and Polsinelli Shughart served as Kansas counsel.

Japan’s Softbank in Talks for $12.8 Billion Sprint Stake

Softbank said reports about the talks were "based on speculation" and it had no comment. Sprint declined to comment. The report drove Sprint shares up 16 percent in premarket trading Thursday.

Sprint Nextel, whose market capitalization was $15.12 billion at Wednesday's market close, is the third-largest U.S. carrier, with more than 56 million users at the end of June.

Kevin Roe at Roe Equity Research estimated Softbank could be offering about $6.40 per Sprint Nextel share, a 27 percent premium.

Softbank is in talks with several banks to borrow money to finance a bid, the source told Reuters. One analyst said this deal might be the Japanese company's only option if it has eyes on the American market.

"In terms of (Sprint) standalone, we believe the asset represents the only way for a potential new entrant to get a national presence immediately in the U.S.," Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche wrote in a note to clients.

WEALTHY FOUNDER

Softbank, founded and led by Masayoshi Son - Japan's second-richest man, according to Forbes - was the first of Japan's leading mobile carriers to offer Apple Inc's iPhone in Japan.

It lost that monopoly last year, when rival KDDI Corp also began offering the iPhone. Softbank faces tougher competition at home against KDDI and market leader NTT Docomo.

The company has grown from a packaged software distributor 30 years ago into a broad telecoms group worth more than $40 billion. It took over Vodafone Japan in 2006.

As it chases market share, Softbank said this month it would buy smaller mobile service operator eAccess Ltd in a $1.84 billion deal. It said the buy would give it a total of 39 million users, just ahead of KDDI's 36 million.

Japanese media said buying Sprint - which competes in the United States against Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc - would also make it cheaper for Softbank to procure smartphones and other mobile devices.

NETWORK REVAMP

Sprint, led by Chief Executive Dan Hesse, has been bleeding customers for years and is in the middle of a costly network modernization project that involves upgrading its Sprint network. At the same time, it is decommissioning the Nextel iDen network it bought in 2005.

"The challenge is not access to capital," said Roe. "The challenge is that they're sub-scale (much smaller than rivals AT&T and Verizon) and going through a very challenging network transition."

Sprint may also be attractive as it has a majority interest in wireless data company Clearwire Corp, which owns attractive spectrum, Wells Fargo's Fritzsche said. Analysts at Evercore said Softbank and Clearwire are both in the process of upgrading their networks to the same standard, which might add further synergies.

Clearwire shares rose 23 percent in premarket trading.

JAPANESE FORAY

Fritzsche said regulators would likely look favorably on a deal that would bring an outside international player to the United States.

Japanese companies made a record 642 cross-border deals last year, according to Thomson Reuters data. Buoyed by a stronger yen, the value of all overseas deals rose to $69.5 billion, up 81 percent from 2010, also a record.

The biggest foreign acquisition by a Japanese company to date was Japan Tobacco's 1.8 trillion yen buy of British-based tobacco firm Gallaher in 2007.

The Japanese are no stranger to U.S. wireless companies. NTT Docomo was once a major shareholder of the former AT&T Wireless and explored an outright bid for the company at one time.

Meanwhile, Sprint is considering whether to make a bid for smaller rival MetroPCS Communications, which this month agreed to merge with Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA, a source told Reuters this week.

It was unclear what effect, if any, the Softbank offer might have on Sprint's potential pursuit of MetroPCS.

(Additional reporting by Mari Saito and James Topham, with Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore; Writing by Ian Geoghegan and Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Ron Popeski and John Wallace)

DealBook: Sony Agrees to Acquire Stake in Olympus

TOKYO — Sony is set to become the biggest shareholder in Olympus with an investment of 50 billion yen, or $645 million, investment, the two companies announced Friday.

The deal could give struggling Sony a jump-start in the lucrative medical equipment business, while helping to bolster Olympus’s balance sheet following its $1.7 billion accounting scandal.

Sony and Olympus will form a joint venture to develop and manufacture endoscopes and other medical devices, the companies said in a statement. Olympus controls about 70 percent of the world’s market for medical endoscopes.

The two companies will also consider cooperating in digital cameras, they said.

Sony, struggling after four years of losses because of its slumping TV business, has been looking for new sources of revenue. It entered the medical device field last year by acquiring the American medical diagnostics firm Micronics for an undisclosed sum. Sony’s president, Kazuo Hirai, has said medical businesses could one day be a major profit driver.

Meanwhile, Olympus, which admitted last year to hiding losses for over a decade, is desperate to shore up its capital.

It replaced its entire board, restated five years of earnings and took a $1.3 billion write-down after acknowledging that it obscured what it said were past investment losses in inflated mergers and acquisition payments.

The deal announced on Friday calls for Sony to take a 11.5 percent stake in Olympus by buying new Olympus shares for 1,454 yen a share — a 4 percent discount to Friday’s closing price.

The two companies will set up a joint company by the end of the year, of which Sony will hold 51 percent and Olympus will hold 49 percent, the companies said. Sony will also select a director to serve on Olympus’s board.

In statements, Hiroyuki Sasa, the Olympus president, and Mr. Hirai of Sony both stressed that the deal would bring together Sony’s technological edge in digital imaging with Olympus’s already-dominant position in the medical field.

‘‘By accepting an investment from Sony, we will not only strengthen our financial base, but also combine our strengths and develop the kind of medical devices that we may not have been able to develop on our own,‘‘ Mr. Sasa said.

Sony will position the medical field ‘‘as one of Sony’s future core businesses,’’ Mr. Hirai said.

Olympus shares gained 1.7 percent to 1,520 yen in Tokyo on Friday, after the Nikkei business daily carried a report on the deal in its morning edition. Shares in the company, which lost nine-tenths of their value after the scandal erupted last October, have recovered to almost half their pre-scandal levels.

Shares in Sony fell 1.1 percent to 919 yen. Its shares have already slumped 34 percent this year.

On Tuesday, Standard & Poor’s cut Sony’s long-term debt rating a notch to BBB, the second-lowest investment grade, and warned of further downgrades unless Sony turns its business around.

DealBook: Intel to Buy Stake in Dutch Semiconductor Equipment Firm

Intel agreed Monday to buy a 15 percent stake in ASML Holding, a Dutch semiconductor equipment maker, in an investment that may total as much as $4.1 billion.

Under the terms of the deal, Intel will buy an initial 10 percent of ASML’s shares for about $2.1 billion. The American technology giant also agreed to pay about $1 billion to help finance additional research and development costs at ASML.

The investment will be used primarily to speed up the introduction of bigger chip wafers and newer semiconductor manufacturing technology known as extreme ultraviolet lithography.

If approved by ASML shareholders, Intel would later buy an additional 5 percent for $1 billion.

ASML, which is based in Veldhoven in the Netherlands, had previously said that it planned to sell up to 25 percent of itself to chip makers like Intel as a way to raise capital.

Intel said that it plans to pay for the investment through cash held in foreign subsidiaries, which it can use without incurring taxes in the United States.