AT&T (NYSE: T) made it official today that it will sell off its Japanese domestic outsourcing services to Internet Initiative Japan (NasdaqGS: IIJI) for $100.7 million.
Under the terms of the agreement, IIJ will acquire a subsidiary created by AT&T to sell off its Japanese unit. In acquiring the unit, IIJ will gain about 1,600 domestic Japanese business customers and 250 AT&T employees who support these customers.
The deal with IIJ should not come all that much as a surprise. A rumor emerged last December that AT&T was going to sell off the Japanese outsourcing unit--one that it previously acquired from IBM.
This sale does not mark the end of AT&T's Japanese presence, however. The company will continue to provide services to multinational corporations (MNCs) through its own global network infrastructure, which includes four global network service nodes, remote access infrastructure for corporate clients, an Internet Data Center and its international submarine cabling assets.
"Japan is one of the top destinations for our multinational clients and remains an important market for AT&T. We intend to maintain a strong presence in Japan, but it makes strategic sense for us to sell our domestic customer base and supporting operations in Japan to IIJ," said Bernard Yee, vice president AT&T Asia Pacific in a release. "The sale will enable AT&T to focus on its core strength--providing global managed connectivity and application services to multinational corporations that operate on a global basis."
For more:
- see the release here
- Reuters also has this article
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