(Bloomberg) -- Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group Corp. ended its pursuit of a stake in reinsurer Swiss Re AG, though the two companies said they may agree to collaborate on some businesses.

A purchase of a stake in the world’s second-biggest reinsurer would have given the Japanese technology and investment company access to steady cash flows and help diversify its sources of income. The two sides had disagreed over the price and size of the stake and how much management control would be handed to Son, people with knowledge of the matter said earlier this month.

The two agreed to end discussions about a stake sale, Zurich-based Swiss Re said in a statement on Monday. The company “will also further explore business ideas between Swiss Re’s operative entities and the portfolio companies of SoftBank,” it said.

Issues within SoftBank, such as the pending merger of its Sprint Corp. business with T-Mobile US Inc. and the initial public offering of SoftBank’s mobile unit, had shifted Son’s focus, the people had said.

Though it was reported that SoftBank was interested in as much as a quarter of the insurer, Swiss Re executives with knowledge of the talks said the stake under discussion was 10 percent or less.

Son has a net worth of about $13 billion and is Japan’s third-richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ross Larsen in Rome at rlarsen2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Neil Callanan at ncallanan@bloomberg.net, ;Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Reed Stevenson

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.