SoftBank is selling almost all of its shares in games firm GungHo for $685M

SoftBank is continuing to divest some of its major shareholdings after the Japanese firm announced plans to sell almost all of its stock in games firm GungHo for $685 million.

SoftBank’s two entities — SoftBank Group and SoftBank Corp. — will sell a combination of 248.3 million shares, a 23.47 percent stake of the company, for an agreed total of around 73 billion JPY. GungHo, which includes hit title Puzzles & Dragons among its games, said it intends to acquire the shares through a tender offer this month.

SoftBank said in a statement that the move is “part of our SoftBank 2.0 transformation strategy.” Last week, the Japanese firm — which owns U.S. carrier Sprint — announced plans to offload as much as $7.9 billion in shares from Alibaba. SoftBank is also rumored to be in talks to sell its majority share of European gaming company Supercell to Chinese internet firm Tencent to raise additional funds.

The moves are widely reported to be aimed at cutting SoftBank’s debt, which was as high as 11.9 trillion yen ($107 billion) at the end of March. Around one-third of that debt is said to be associated with Sprint.