Sprint parent company SoftBank to buy investment group for $3.3 billion

SoftBank Group Corp. is buying alternative-asset manager Fortress Investment Group LLC for $3.3 billion to operate alongside the Japanese company’s soon-to-be-established technology investment fund.

SoftBank is the parent company of Overland Park-based Sprint.

Japan’s SoftBank will pay $8.08 a share for New York-based Fortress, a 39 percent premium to the company’s Monday closing price, according to a statement Tuesday. Fortress co-founders Pete Briger, Wes Edens and Randy Nardone have agreed to continue leading the business, which will remain based in New York and operate independently within SoftBank, according to the statement.

SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son is in the process of creating a $100 billion Vision Fund with Saudi Arabia that would make the Japanese billionaire one of the world’s biggest technology investors. The Fortress deal will be separate from that vehicle and is aimed at bringing investment talent in-house, according to a SoftBank spokeswoman. The acquisition, which is subject to approval by Fortress shareholders as well as regulators, is expected to close in the second half.

“Fortress’s excellent track record speaks for itself, and we look forward to benefiting from its leadership, broad-based expertise and world-class investment platform,” Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in the statement.

Shares of Fortress closed up 6.5 percent at $6.21 on Tuesday, giving the New York-based company a market value of about $2.4 billion. SoftBank rose 1 percent in Tokyo on Wednesday.

Fortress was founded as a private-equity firm in 1998 by Edens, Nardone and Robert Kauffman, who came from Swiss bank UBS AG and New York-based BlackRock Financial Management Inc.

Fortress managed $70.1 billion in credit assets, private equity holdings, hedge funds and fixed-income investments as of Sept. 30.

This story was originally published February 14, 2017 at 7:16 PM with the headline "Sprint parent company SoftBank to buy investment group for $3.3 billion."