Deals

‘Oops’: Walmart’s Biggest Deal Ever, Announced by SoftBank’s CEO

Bloomberg’s Jason Kelly discusses SoftBank’s possible faux pas with announcing a deal.(Source: Bloomberg)

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By Saritha Rai, Matthew Boyle, and Pavel Alpeyev

May 9, 2018 at 4:54 AM EDT

Updated on

May 9, 2018 at 7:13 AM EDT

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This isn’t the way multibillion-dollar deals usually get announced.

Hours before Walmart Inc. was scheduled to unveil the largest acquisition in its history, Masayoshi Son, chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp., spilled the beans to a roomful of investors and journalists in Tokyo. He confirmed that the U.S. retailer has agreed to buy control of Flipkart Online Services Pvt, the leading Indian e-commerce player backed by SoftBank.

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