The company’s shares have slid more than 40% from their peak in mid-March after its repurchase programme ran out
Masayoshi Son said his SoftBank Group would buy back as much as ¥1-trillion of its stock after a decline in the value of its portfolio companies led to a record loss in its Vision Fund investment unit.
The SoftBank founder is returning to a familiar strategy after an unprecedented ¥2.5-trillion buyback programme in 2021 helped more than triple the company’s valuation from its pandemic low. The company’s shares have slid more than 40% from their peak in mid-March after the repurchase programme ran out.
Son’s Vision Fund has been a volatile contributor of profit and loss since its creation in 2017. The unrealised loss on valuation of public companies totalled $17.7bn in the latest quarter across SoftBank’s two Vision Funds. Coupang was responsible for $6.7 billion of the loss. SoftBank’s portfolio of Chinese start-ups was particularly hard-hit after the country’s regulators launched an offensive against technology giants. Didi, whose debut at the end of the previous quarter was one of the largest US offerings of the past decade, lost $6.1 billion in the quarter and Uber-like trucking start-up Full Truck Alliance was down $1.2bn.
SoftBank has said it will proceed cautiously with investments in China, estimating that 20% of the Vision Fund investments will go into the region. The country has been the source of Son’s biggest successes, but the Beijing crackdown has raised concerns about the future.
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