SoftBank Earns Profit, Vision Fund Continues With The Loss Making Run

Updated on: 2 December 2022 11:28 pm

The fintech plans to aggressively hire software engineers, technical leads and product managers for the launch of its flagship product in January 2023

CheQ to add over 100 employees to its technology team Photo: The fintech plans to aggressively hire software engineers, technical leads and product managers for the launch of its flagship product in January 2023

Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp registered a quarterly profit in three quarters. This development was influenced by the company’s decision to sell some of its stake in the Chinese company Alibaba.

However, the investment wing of SoftBank, Vision Fund, reported another loss for the third straight quarter.

Vision Fund is known for upending the world of venture capital (VC) with its attractive and risk-taking bets on global start-ups. However, the fund has been shattered by a recent worldwide tech rout, leading the chief executive of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son, to scale back some of its fresh investments.

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As per sources, SoftBank has written down its less than $100 million investment in troubled crypto exchange FTX to zero.

In the first quarter, SoftBank Group reported a 3.16 trillion yen loss. The net profit of SoftBank also came to 3.03 trillion yen in the July-September quarter.

As an effect of this massive loss in the first quarter, SoftBank reduced its stake in Alibaba Group Holdings to around 15 per cent from around 24 per cent by settling prepaid forward contracts and booking an estimated gain of 4.6 trillion yen in the second quarter.

In the latest quarter, some of SoftBank’s latest investments also witnessed a downfall. These include US real estate broker Compass and Indonesia’s largest tech firm GoTo. However, firms like Coupang emerged as top gainers amid this rough patch.