US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — SoftBank, a Japanese financial conglomerate that invests in startups in many countries around the world, is forced to shake up its portfolio to support a business hit by a pandemic.
According to Bloomberg, the entire company needs $ 41 billion. The fact that it is planned to get this money through the sale of assets was announced on March 23 by the founder of SoftBank Masayoshi Son, however, without specifying what exactly will be offered to customers.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg sources said that one of such assets could be a stake in Alibaba Group, which is estimated at $ 12-15 billion. The conglomerate’s share in China’s e-commerce giant, valued at a total of $ 120 billion, is SoftBank’s largest market value.
Among the priorities of the Japanese company are the repurchase of shares and debt reduction to alleviate the problems of investors who dropped about 40% of SoftBank’s capitalization from the level of the February peak. Problems come from the $ 100 billion Vision Fund, which is managed by the conglomerate.
The fund is very vulnerable to economic shocks due to the debt burden, as well as the losses incurred by wards of startups. In particular, the fund invests in shared economy projects, and they have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
Information about a possible sale of assets became a powerful driver for SoftBank shares: on March 24, at the auction in Tokyo, they grew by 21%, showing the largest intraday growth since the listing.
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