According to reports, SoftBank Group Corp reported on Thursday a net loss of 1.7 trillion yen ($13.12 billion) for the year ended in March as the tech investor faces a sliding tech portfolio.
The result compared with a record 4.99 trillion yen profit a year earlier, when the boost from the listing of South Korean e-commerce firm Coupang saw SoftBank’s earnings surpass global heavyweights including Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, the report said.
Coupang is trading 70 percent below its listing price and is one of a swathe of portfolio companies, including ridehailers Didi Global Inc and Grab Holdings, that tumbled during the January-March quarter.
The slump is casting a shadow on founder and CEO Masayoshi Son’s strategy of heavy concentration in high-growth stocks increasingly out of favour with investors as interest rates rise, the report said.
SoftBank’s Vision Fund unit reported a 2.97 trillion yen investment loss in the January-March quarter, according to Reuters calculations.
The 64-year-old billionaire has described SoftBank as a goose laying golden eggs but the pace of listings has slowed with one notable recent exception, Indonesia’s GoTo, sliding since going public last month, the report said.
To raise cash SoftBank is targeting a US listing of chip designer Arm following the collapse of the sale to chipmaker Nvidia. (Source: Deccan Herald)
