Editorial Summary

Alibaba Group's business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce subsidiary Alibaba.com Ltd. (1688.HK) and Softbank Corp. announced the creation of their joint venture Alibaba.com Japan on Thursday. Softbank is investing $20 million in the joint venture in the initial period for a 65 percent stake in the company that will be headed up by Makoto Kouyama as CEO. Softbank and Alibaba.com CEOs Masayoshi Son and David Wei will join the company as directors. Alibaba.com Japan will be in charge of operating Alibaba.com's Japanese site (alibaba.co.jp). Alibaba.com Japan has more than 75,000 members and over one million product listings.