Rakuten Inc. said Friday proceeds from its planned sale of all its equity stake in online travel service firm Ctrip.com International Ltd. will total about 58 billion yen.
Rakuten, the largest shareholder of the Nasdaq-listed company, said capital gains from the sale will amount to about 46 billion yen. It will report the sum as an extraordinary profit for the 2007 business year ending Dec. 31.
In June 2004, Japan's biggest online shopping mall operator acquired 20.3 percent of the Cayman Islands-based company's outstanding shares for about 12 billion yen, hoping to boost its services in China, where it was already operating its own Web site for hotel reservations.
Earlier this week, Rakuten unveiled a plan to dispose of all of its holdings in the travel firm, operating in China.