The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Softbank boss wants to buy back up to 15 percent of the shares

2021-11-08T14:32:04.460Z


After a billion-dollar loss, Softbank boss Masayoshi Son once again agrees on the undervaluation of his technology conglomerate. The largest shareholder wants to invest billions of dollars in share buybacks - the desired reaction on the stock market is taking place.


Enlarge image

"We are in the middle of a snow storm"

: Softbank boss

Masayoshi Son

Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon / REUTERS

Softbank boss

Masayoshi Son

(64) likes to describe his technology conglomerate as a goose that lays "golden eggs". But in the past quarter, the losses in value of the investments held mainly in the "Vision Fund" brought the fund losses of around 10 billion dollars - and thus pushed the group into the red with a total of 3.5 billion dollars. "We are in the middle of a blizzard," said Son on CNBC, admitting that he was "not proud" of the quarterly performance of the Vision Fund.

The Chinese holdings in particular fell under the wheels. Online giant Alibaba, the group's largest asset, lost almost a third of its value, not least as a result of the repression in Beijing. The stake in the Chinese transport service Didi, which was acquired for twelve billion dollars, was in turn valued at 7.5 billion dollars. Online retailer Coupang lost a third of its value.

You'd think such news would spread a bad mood among Softbank shareholders, but in fact, Softbank's stock rose more than 7 percent at its peak.

This is probably less due to the fact that Son once again started the mantra of the undervaluation of his group on the stock market or his insurance that Softbank is always working on increasing the number of "golden eggs" in the portfolio.

Rather, the Softbank boss announced according to the "Financial Times" that the company would spend around 9 billion dollars to buy back 15 percent of its shares and withdraw them from the market - price maintenance of the simplest kind, because a profit is thus distributed over significantly fewer shares .

$ 9 billion in share buybacks

Son, who himself owns 29 percent of the shares in Softbank, does not seem to be lacking in capital. Among other things, the group had raised capital by reducing its stakes - for example in the transport service Uber as well as in the grocery supplier Doordash - after the blocking period had expired.

But despite bad news - the group's assets fell by more than 20 percent to around $ 190 billion - management also sees positive developments. "The pipeline is robust," quoted CNBC Navneet Govil, CFO of the Vision Fund. That is to say: The planned listing of the Southeast Asian Uber competitor Grab via a merger with a special purpose vehicle (SPAC) should bring the valuation up just as much as the targeted IPOs of the Indian transport service provider Ola and the logistics specialist Delivery.

In addition to the $ 100 billion Vision Fund, Govil is currently focusing on the $ 40 billion smaller fund, which is reportedly invested in 157 start-ups.

It was only at the end of October that it became known that Softbank had invested 150 million euros in the Berlin photovoltaic start-up Enpal and thus made the lessor of solar systems a unicorn.

Softbank also has a stake in Deutsche Telekom and became Telekom's second largest shareholder in a complex deal in mid-October.

rei

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-11-08

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-22T17:13:27.184Z
News/Politics 2024-02-07T14:32:27.119Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.