{"id":22938,"date":"2023-05-11T10:59:53","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T10:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/107238892"},"modified":"2023-05-11T10:59:53","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T10:59:53","slug":"softbank-posts-record-32-billion-loss-at-its-vision-fund-tech-investment-arm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/softbank-posts-record-32-billion-loss-at-its-vision-fund-tech-investment-arm\/","title":{"rendered":"SoftBank posts record $32 billion loss at its Vision Fund tech investment arm"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/softbank-posts-record-32-billion-loss-at-its-vision-fund-tech-investment-arm.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"HighlightShare-hidden\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"InlineImage-imageEmbed\" id=\"ArticleBody-InlineImage-107239143\" data-test=\"InlineImage\">\n<div class=\"InlineImage-wrapper\">\n<div>\n<p>SoftBank has faced headwinds in its Vision Fund investment division due to a fall in technology company valuations amid rising interest rates.<\/p>\n<p>Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p><span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-1\"><span class=\"waslinkname\">SoftBank<\/span><span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"><\/span><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span> recorded a record loss for its Vision Fund as a recent rally in tech stocks has done little to help another difficult year for its flagship investment unit.<\/p>\n<p>The Japanese giant&#8217;s Vision Fund segment posted a 4.3 trillion Japanese yen ($32 billion) loss for its fiscal year ending Mar. 31 versus a 2.55 trillion yen loss in the same period a year before.<\/p>\n<p>SoftBank posted an overall loss on investments at its Vision Funds of 5.28 trillion Japanese yen versus 3.43 trillion yen a year before. Despite a rally this year in tech stocks, they are broadly still lower than a year ago. The tech-heavy <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-2\"><span class=\"waslinkname\">Nasdaq 100<\/span><span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"><\/span><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span> index declined about 11% during SoftBank&#8217;s fiscal year.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, SoftBank posted a net loss of 970.14 billion yen for the fiscal year, narrower than the 1.7 trillion loss in the same period a year before.<\/p>\n<p>Despite gains from exiting investments in high-profile companies like ride-hailing firm Uber, SoftBank said that it logged losses in areas including the share prices of Chinese artificial intelligence firm SenseTime and Indonesian ride-hailing and e-commerce company GoTo.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past year, SoftBank has been&nbsp;<span class=\"waslinkname\">exiting some of its highest-profile investments<\/span>&nbsp;to raise cash. It narrowed its overall losses through sales of shares in T-Mobile and <span class=\"waslinkname\">Alibaba<\/span>. It continues to offload some of its shares in the latter company via a derivative called a forward contract, after Son made his fortune with an early investment in Alibaba more than two decades ago.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In August, it said it had sold its remaining stake in U.S. ride-hailing giant&nbsp;<span class=\"waslinkname\">Uber<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>The companies that SoftBank has invested in are well capitalized, according to the Japanese giant&#8217;s Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto. He said SoftBank has a number of companies ready to go public, which are valued at a combined $37 billion. He did not name these companies.<\/p>\n<p>The brainchild of founder Masayoshi Son, SoftBank&#8217;s Vision Fund comprises Vision Fund 1 and Vision Fund 2 and invests in high growth stocks, which have faced headwinds from rising interest rates globally causing investors to sell out of riskier equities such as tech.<\/p>\n<p>Amid mounting losses, Son&#8217;s key ally and top SoftBank executive Rajeev Misra <span class=\"waslinkname\">stepped back from some of his roles at the company<\/span>. Misra was instrumental in the early days of the Vision Fund, which was launched in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"ArticleBody-subtitle\">&#8216;Defense&#8217; mode<\/h2>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>Around a year ago, <span class=\"waslinkname\">Son said SoftBank would go into &#8220;defense&#8221; mode<\/span> amid the headwinds and become more disciplined with its investments.<\/p>\n<p>That tactic appeared to be working in SoftBank&#8217;s fiscal fourth quarter from January to March, helped by the rally in tech stocks. SoftBank&#8217;s Vision Funds recorded investment losses 236.8 billion yen in the period, versus 730.3 billion yen in the quarter before.<\/p>\n<p>SoftBank said it made $3.14 billion in new or follow-on investments in its fiscal year, down from $44.26 billion in the same period of a year prior.<\/p>\n<p>During a press conference on Thursday, Goto said that it has been an &#8220;unstable&#8221; year marked by geopolitical risks and financial system instability, citing the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and issues at Credit Suisse.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the first quarter, we may be able to see some signs of improvement, however we are not expecting a fundamental resolution \u2026 for those issues,&#8221; Goto said.<\/p>\n<p>He nevertheless said that artificial intelligence technology is making &#8220;dramatic progress&#8221; with the company, weighing up whether to stay in defense mode.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With those situations should we just keep in defense or should we keep a balance with offense?&#8221; Goto asked.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"ArticleBody-subtitle\">Arm IPO in focus<\/h2>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>Now investors are looking toward the initial public offering of British semiconductor firm Arm, which is owned by SoftBank, as a way to shore up the Japanese firm&#8217;s balance sheet and perhaps give it more money to make new investments. Last month, <span class=\"waslinkname\">Arm filed confidentially for a listing in the U.S<\/span>. Arm <span class=\"waslinkname\">previously said it would list in the U.S. over the U.K.<\/span>, dealing a blow to the London stock exchange.<\/p>\n<p>SoftBank <span class=\"waslinkname\">agreed to acquire Arm in 2016<\/span>. Goto said that he was unable to discuss Arm at length due to the confidential filing in the U.S., but said preparation for the IPO is &#8220;going smoothly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Arm posted sales of 381.7 billion yen in the fiscal year, up more than 27% year-on-year. The company&#8217;s pre-tax income rose 18% year-on-year to 48.6 billion yen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SoftBank has faced headwinds in its Vision Fund investment division due to a fall in technology company valuations amid rising interest rates. Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images SoftBank recorded a record loss for its Vision Fund as a recent rally in tech stocks has done little to help another difficult year for its &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22938"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22938"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=22938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}