Staff on stage prepare for the SoftBank Group press conference on Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Tokyo, Japan.
Toru Hanuchi | Bloomberg | Getty Images
SoftBank Group In the first fiscal quarter ended in June, the company’s Vision Fund technology investment arm earned 1.9 billion yen ($12.9 million) in investment income, turning a profit.
The Japanese giant also announced it would buy back up to 6.8% of the company’s available shares for up to 500 billion yen ($3.4 billion).
In the same period last year, SoftBank Vision Fund earned 159.77 billion yen. In the March quarter, SoftBank reported a 57.53 billion yen loss at its flagship technology investment unit.
In the fiscal year ended in March, SoftBank Vision Fund posted its first full-year gain since 2021, benefiting from gains in technology stocks and some of its key holdings.
The Vision Fund’s recent success also owes much to last year’s successful initial public offering of chip designer Arm, in which SoftBank owns about 90%.
However, SoftBank once again faces volatile public markets. On Monday, Japanese stocks fell overall as the Bank of Japan raised interest rates last week, with SoftBank shares falling nearly 19% in one day.
However, Japan’s main stock index did rebound on Tuesday. But global markets remain volatile as investors remain concerned about the state of the world economy and high valuations driven by technology stocks.
SoftBank itself has been marred by bad bets over the past few years, but it is trying to position itself to investors as a key player in the artificial intelligence boom. The company’s management highlighted investments in companies such as Arm and self-driving startup Wayve, signaling the Japanese giant’s readiness to capitalize on the growth of artificial intelligence.
SoftBank’s high-profile founder Masayoshi Son, who has been out of the public eye for some time, returned this year to convey his vision for artificial intelligence, which he predicts will be 10,000 times smarter than humans within 10 years.
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