Rakuten to raise $2.2bn as Japan Post, Tencent and Walmart buy stakes

The Japanese e-commerce pioneer has benefited from a boom in online shopping, but faces stiff competition from Amazon

Rakuten chief executive Hiroshi Mikitani, left, and Japan Post chief executive Hiroya Masuda pose together during a press conference in Tokyo on Friday. AP

Rakuten plans to raise 242 billion yen ($2.2bn) by selling shares to investors including Tencent, Walmart and Japan Post.

Japan Post will buy a stake of 8.3 per cent through new and existing shares in Rakuten while China’s social media leader and the US retail giant will take smaller slices, a filing showed on Friday.

Shares of Rakuten and Japan Post surged as the agreement builds on an existing alliance on logistics forged by the two last year.

The Japanese e-commerce pioneer has benefited from a boom in online shopping during the pandemic, but faces stiff competition from Amazon. Last year, the company scaled back plans to offer free shipping after pushback from sellers using its platform prompted regulatory scrutiny. Rakuten is also expanding rapidly into wireless mobile, hoping to disrupt the staid industry.

“The alliance will focus on e-commerce first, where having access to Japan Post’s network will be a crucial advantage,” Rakuten chief executive Hiroshi Mikitani said at a briefing in Tokyo. “We will also look into partnership in mobile and other businesses.”

Rakuten will invest the proceeds into logistics, artificial intelligence and its mobile network. The loss at the company’s wireless unit nearly tripled to 227bn yen last fiscal year as it spent money to build out its network while offering free service to lure users.

The deal brings together Rakuten’s more than 100 million members and Japan Post’s last-mile access to every household and a network of 24,000 post offices, the two companies said in a presentation. The postal group also operates a life insurance business and a bank with about 120 million savings accounts.

“If Japan Post integrates some of Rakuten’s online services to its huge nationwide network, this can be a reasonably big win for both,” Amir Anvarzadeh, a market strategist at Asymmetric Advisors in Singapore, wrote in a note to clients. “It adds one more reason to own” Rakuten shares, he said.

The pair plan to create joint logistics centres and shared delivery and pick-up systems and will also share data to improve efficiency.

Post offices will form counters where people will be able to sign up for Rakuten’s mobile service and make use of other services. They will also collaborate on cashless payments and insurance. Further details of the partnership will be unveiled in April.

“We thought long and hard about risk and return before deciding on this investment,” Japan Post chief executive Hiroya Masuda said at the briefing. “We believe that going beyond a business arrangement to a capital tie-up will take this partnership to a new level.”