Global network provider AT&T has made an agreement with Internet Initiative Japan, a provider of managed services and hosting, to sell IIJ its operations in Japan through which it provides IT and network services domestically to about 1,600 businesses in the country. The seller said the move was part of its strategy of focusing on global services for multinational-corporation. AT&T retained the part of its Japanese business that caters to multinationals globally.

"Japan is one of the top destinations for our multinational clients and remains an important market for AT&T," VP for AT&T Asia Pacific Bernard Yee said in a statement. "We intend to maintain a strong presence in Japan, but it makes strategic sense for us to sell our domestic customer base and supporting operations in Japan to IIJ."

The seller will retain assets in Japan that are part of its Global Network infrastructure, which includes four network service nodes, remote-access infrastructure for corporate clients, an Internet data center and international submarine cable capacity. AT&T will continue providing managed global connectivity services and a variety of value-added services.

The sale price is about $100m, based on May 31 exchange rate for Japanese yen. The parties expect to close the deal in early September.

IIJ provides data center services, cloud-based services (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS), managed services, hosting and network management services. The company is expected to start building a new container-based data center sometime this month. The facility is designed by IIJ, which expects to be able to cool it by outside air throughout the year and reduce the facility cost of its cloud services by 40 percent.

The deal with AT&T includes 250 employees that support the customer-base IIJ will inherit along with the purchased assets.