DoCoMo About to Write Down KPN Investment

The Japanese Nihon Keizai newspaper has reported that DoCoMo is preparing to write down its 15% stake in KPN by US$3.3 billion. DoCoMo has denied that it has plans to write down the investment, but the paper said that it expects the move to be announced next month when the company releases its six month financial report. Last month, DoCoMo took on an independent assessor to evaluate its overseas investments, including AT&T Wireless and its 3G partnership in Europe with Hutchison Whampoa.

If DoCoMo does write down its investments, that could pressure other international groups to re-adjust the values of their holdings. The most likely causalities would be Vodafone, Hutchison Whampoa and Deutsche Telekom. Most analysts appear to have already anticipated the write down in their forecasts so the impact on telecom share prices should be slight."

Posted to the site on 22nd October 2001