A day after Uber said that it has agreed to SoftBank’s multibillion dollar investment, the Japanese conglomerate said that it was still only considering the investment and that there was no final agreement at this stage, according to a report in Reuters.
“If conditions on share price and a minimum of shares are not satisfactory for the SoftBank Group side, there is a possibility the SoftBank Group may not make an investment,” SoftBank said in a statement.
Uber said in a statement on Monday that the planned deal with SoftBank and Dragoneer Investment Group, which could be an investment of up to $10 billion, was moving forward.
A consortium of investors led by SoftBank and Dragoneer reportedly plan to invest $1 billion to $1.25 billion in Uber. As part of the deal, the investors will also pick up around 17% of existing shares in a secondary transaction.
“We’ve entered into an agreement with a consortium led by SoftBank and Dragoneer on a potential investment. We believe this agreement is a strong vote of confidence in Uber’s long-term potential. Upon closing, it will help fuel our investments in technology and our continued expansion at home and abroad, while strengthening our corporate governance,” Uber said in a statement on Monday.
The progress in the deal came after several weeks of negotiations over the price and terms of the deal between SoftBank and Uber’s board. During the negotiations, former CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick also put in a condition that Benchmark put the lawsuit against him on hold, something that the investor eventually gave in to.
Uber has also approved several governance reforms such as restricting Travis’ role in Uber, increasing the size of the board to 17 to make space for two new independent directors and also making voting rights equal to all different share classes. These reforms, Bloomberg reports, are key to SoftBank investing in Uber.