SoftBank Group Corp. is in talks to sell a large portion of its holdings of T-Mobile U.S. Inc. to controlling shareholder Deutsche Telekom AG as the Japanese telecom giant struggles to raise funds, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday in its online edition.

The transaction, if completed, would boost Deutsche Telekom's nearly 44 percent stake in T-Mobile above 50 percent, the U.S. business daily said, citing people familiar with the matter. SoftBank Group currently owns around a 25 percent stake in T-Mobile.

The size of any purchase is still being discussed but it would likely be significant, the paper said, adding that T-Mobile's market value stands at about $120 billion.

But the people familiar with the matter warned that the negotiations could still fall apart, according to the report.

T-mobile absorbed Sprint Corp., a struggling U.S. carrier controlled by SoftBank Group, in April.

SoftBank Group Corp. on Monday reported a record net loss for the year that ended March 31, its first red ink in 15 years, as it substantially wrote off the value of its key fund's investments in startups, including U.S. co-working space provider WeWork, over the coronavirus outbreak.

SoftBank Group chalked up a group net loss of 961.58 billion yen ($9 billion), a sharp drop from the net profit of 1.41 trillion yen in the previous year.

==Kyodo

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