TEPCO to sell KDDI stake for nuclear payout

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) plans to sell its shares in telecom operator KDDI worth $2.2 billion to help fund compensation its the nuclear accident, a newspaper said Sunday. TEPCO, which runs the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, holds some 360,000 shares in KDDI, or an eight percent stake, making it the firm's third-largest shareholder, after Kyocera Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp.
The embattled power operator is already sounding out the telecom firm about the sale of its shares worth about 180 billion yen ($2.2 billion) at the current market price, the Nikkei business daily said.
The KDDI shares account for roughly half of TEPCO's stockholdings in some 250 business partners and other firms, the newspaper said. TEPCO is likely to sell the shares to several institutional investors, with the help of brokerage firms, the Nikkei said.