NTT DoCoMo Inc. plans to sell about ¥100 billion of bonds in its first issuance in five years, to fund dividend payments and share buybacks.
"We'd like to make the sale while the market is calm, so sometime in the first half of the fiscal year would probably be best," Chief Financial Officer Masayuki Hirata said. The amount will be in the range of ¥100 billion but won't exceed ¥200 billion, he said.
The debt sale will help the nation's largest mobile phone operator meet its pledge to pay about ¥200 billion of dividends and buy back as much as ¥150 billion of shares in the year ending March 31. The company's cash inflow is shrinking after it began allowing customers to pay for mobile phones in installments.