SoftBank's Year of Dramas and Crises

What a year SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has had. The Japanese investment giant was arguably one of the worst affected by the Covid downturn last year, given its high debt and significant exposure to companies like Uber and WeWork that were walloped by the lockdowns. Even before the worst of the economic impact had hit, SoftBank reported a $9 billion loss for the year to March 2020. Things turned around though, as SoftBank sold some big holdings, like Sprint. As Son commented today, SoftBank’s 40-year history has been a time of “many dramas, of course, many crises. Sometimes I was so happy, sometimes I was so depressed.” That seemed to sum up 2020.

Today, though, Son was happy. SoftBank reported a $47 billion net profit for its most recent fiscal year, driven by the incredible bull market of the past 12 months. The company and its $100 billion Vision Fund is sitting on some big gains from some of the high-priced tech IPOs over the past nine months, most obviously of Coupang and DoorDash. As of March 31, the Vision Fund was able to claim cumulative gains of $57 billion, a decent return on $85.7 billion in acquisitions. After all the negative headlines about the Vision Fund and its high-risk tech bets over the past few years, SoftBank has a good story to tell.