TOKYO— SoftBank Group Corp.
9984 4.45%
it climbed the hot stock markets to a large quarterly profit, in large part thanks to investment gains from its $ 100 billion vision fund and its $ 10 billion successor.
The Japanese technology investor said Monday that it earned a net profit of ¥ 1.17 trillion, equivalent to about $ 11 billion, in investment gains of ,7 1.77 trillion during the quarter ended December 31st. Nearly 80% of investment gains were due to strong performance in Vision Funds 1 and 2.
The anticipation of strong results pushed the price of SoftBank shares to increase by 4.4% to 48 9,485 on Monday, a level last seen in February 2000, when the company’s shares peaked. during the internet bubble.
“We have finally entered the harvest phase” of the Vision Fund, said Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, at a press conference in Tokyo, in front of a slide showing a goose placing tall columns of golden eggs which represented SoftBank’s investment successes.
The results show the advantage that public markets have had in recent months to the benefit of SoftBank, which over the last year has completed its metamorphosis into an investment holding company of a telecommunications conglomerate. The rise in stock prices last year helped SoftBank regain the negative path due to a multimillion-dollar loss.
These gains continued during the last quarter, increasing the market capitalizations of listed companies in the Vision Funds, the most important of which is Uber Technologies. Inc.,
one of the largest investments in the fund.
Enthusiastic public market investors also gave SoftBank an investment boom when Vision Fund portfolio company DoorDash Inc.
listed in December. The shares of the food delivery company in the United States immediately rose well above their initial public offering price. By the end of the month, DoorDash had earned more than $ 8 billion in paper profits in the fund, and its shares have continued to rise since then.
SoftBank said the quarter ended December was the best for the Vision Foundation, which resulted in a $ 13 billion gain in the value of its investments.
SoftBank is ready to continue leveraging strong markets this year. Half a dozen or more of the Vision Fund’s subsidiaries — some of which already have multimillion-dollar valuations — are preparing initial public offerings this year, said Rajeev Misra, executive director of Vision Fund, in a November call with the research firm. New Street Research shop. Mr. Son said that together their funds could produce between 10 and 20 IPOs.
SoftBank has also deployed or submitted listing applications for at least four special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, blank verification companies that are first made public and then find a company to take over the list. .
The performance was not so good in the new investment unit of SoftBank, an asset management company called SB Northstar, run by Mr. Son, which invests in listed technology companies. The unit, in which Mr. Son has a third of the stake, made waves last year when he made a big bet on the rises in shares of some big tech companies.
These bets amassed heavy losses and the unit ended its business operations late last year, people familiar with the matter said at the time. Between derivative transactions and equity investments, SB Northstar recorded an investment loss of almost 170 170 billion in the last quarter, according to data released Monday by SoftBank.
Mr Son said he was still testing Northstar and that as of Monday he was making a profit.
Write to Phred Dvorak to [email protected]
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