Uber Execs Traveling Globe to Reassure Regulators After Controversies

Uber executives are travelling the globe to reassure regulators that the company is changing the way it does business, after a string of controversies, including a data breach, hurt the ride-hailing firm's reputation, its Asian head said on Monday.

"We've learned very quickly and we're tacking very quickly," Brooks Entwistle, Uber Technologies Inc's recently appointed chief business officer for Asia Pacific, told Reuters in an interview at the company's offices in Tokyo where he is meeting Japanese regulators.

Uber this month disclosed that it covered up a 2016 data breach which compromised data of some 57 million customers and drivers. That revelation prompted governments around the world to launch probes into Uber's handling of the matter.

In the meanwhile, Uber plans to move ahead with a deal to bring in Japanese technology company SoftBank Group as a major investor by disclosing the pricing early next week in formal tender offers to the ride-hailing service's investors, two people familiar with the plans said on Friday.

The start of the tender follows Uber's disclosure of the 2016 data breach. The people familiar with the plans did not say how much investors would be offered for the shares, or say if the price had been cut do to the breach or governments' response to the disclosure.

Investors will have 20 business days, or about a month, to respond to emails and letters to be sent early next week, said one of the sources, who declined to be named because they were not authorized to discuss terms before they are public.

© Thomson Reuters 2017