SoftBank CEO Junichi Miyakawa said on Thursday that the Japanese telecommunications firm is in talks with South Korea's Naver over control of LY, which operates the popular messaging app Line.
Naver said last week that "very unusual" administrative guidance from the government over a data leak last year required it to reduce its control of LY, which is majority owned by a joint venture between SoftBank and Naver.
LY admitted in November last year that there had been unauthorized access of its systems by a third party via Naver's cloud system. This led to the leak of the personal data records of more than 300,000 Line users and others.