Livedoor
livedoor Co. Ltd. (株式会社ライブドア) (TYO: 4753) is an internet service provider based in Tokyo, Japan. Its founder and chairman is Takafumi Horie known well as "Horiemon" in Japan. Livedoor is headquartered in Shinjuku, Tokyo. There is a main business establishment in Roppongi Hills. The company has grown into one of the most famous internet business company by acquisition and stock swap merger.Its web portal is very popular in Japan. The corporation employs 1,288 staff.
History
The company was founded as Edge Corporation in April, 1996 in Minato-ku, Tokyo. It went public in July, 1997. In November 2002, it acquired liverdoor Corp. which was famous as a free internet provider. In April 2003 it changed its name to livedoor Co. Ltd. In 2004, the company planned to buy up the Kintetsu Buffaloes baseball team. After the renunciation of the aquisition, in September, the company founded a baseball team named livedoor baseball and made an application for admission to Nippon professional baseball organization. The team's home ground was to be based in Sendai, Miyagi, but unfortunately, Livedoor lost its applications in competition with Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten.