Japanese venture capital giant Softbank has purchased HK$10 million worth of shares in the recently GEM floated iLink.
iLink, established in 1999, is an Internet application solution provider (ASP) targeting small and medium enterprises (“SMEs”) in Asia and primarily focusing on Greater China. A further HK$10 million worth of shares was purchased by a second, unnamed party in concert with Softbank.
According to the terms made public, Softbank and its mysterious partner, together purchased 15,620,000 iLink shares out of a total 110 million available or slightly less than 15 percent of the total.
Softbank shares have taken a severe hit over the past few days. Softbank is a heavy investor in Yahoo USA and Yahoo Japan, both of which have dived in value over extremely pessimistic earnings estimates were revised downwards for the second time this year.