News
News Categories

Japan's Rakuten Purchases Kobo for $315 Million

By Wong Casandra - on 9 Nov 2011, 11:52am

Japan's Rakuten Purchases Kobo for $315 Million

The e-book industry has just gotten a new and interesting contender, Japan's Rakuten Inc, a Japanese Internet services and e-commerce company. However, Canadian book retailer and creator of Kobo, Indigo, still remains Kobo's majority shareholder and will be expecting "to get about $140 million to $150 million from the sale", Reuter reports. Kobo sales took a big hit when Borders, who owned 11 percent of the e-reader, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.

Rakuten has future plans to acquire all issued and outstanding shares of Kobo, with the overall intention to "assist the company in its move to provide downloadable media to consumers, starting with e-books" according to All Things Digital.

Sources: Reuters, All Things Digital

 

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.