Yahoo Japan aims to buy control of online fashion retailer Zozo for $3.7 bn

Yahoo Japan is a consolidated subsidiary of telco SoftBank Corp, which in turn is controlled by tech conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp

Yahoo Japan Corp said on Thursday it aims to buy 50.1% in online fashion retailer Zozo Inc for about 400 billion yen ($3.70 billion), joining forces to better compete with rivals such as Amazon.com Inc and Rakuten Inc.  

Zozo founder Yusaku Maezawa will sell around 30% of the retailer in a tender offer to Yahoo Japan, leaving him with a stake of about 6%, and step down as CEO of the company, which has struggled following a series of botched initiatives by the flamboyant billionaire. 

Yahoo Japan's offer price of 2,620 yen per share is a premium of around 21%