Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp is faring better than what was initially expected with its quarterly operating profit. The group had leaped in investing gains from its $100 billion Vision Fund.
With SoftBank Group Corp's results increasingly volatile, its founder and CEO, Masayoshi Son, opted to shift the group's focus from the income of telecoms that can easily be predicted, to bets on startups that grow rapidly with shifting valuations through the benefit of its mega fund.
In a statement on Wednesday, SoftBank said that its Saudi-backed operating profit of $100 Billion Vision Fund went up by 66% to a whopping 397.6 Billion Yen for the first quarter ended June.
Investing in 81 firms with a value of $66.3 Billion had done the group good as the investment is now worth $82.2 Billion. The value came from the growth of Softbank's bets in firms like hotel chain OYO and the delivery service Doordash.
A great percentage of the Vision Fund’s gains are paper profits; the unrealized gains in the first quarter had totaled 604 Billion Yen.
However, the group's unrealized loses had amounted to 195 Billion Yen. Such is the consequence of having to put stakes in a firm like Uber that is apparently trading below its IPO price.
Softbank’s first quarter operating profit was 688.8 Billion Yen ($6.49 billion), a dip of 3.7% from the year before owing to the fact that results were propped up by a stake sale in chip designer Arm’s China business.
Collated analyses rendered the latest results overtake a 336 Billion Yen estimate.
Last week, Softbank had claimed to have already secured $108 Billion in pledges, getting its gears ready to launch a second Vision Fund.
In a report, SoftBank is slated to commit $38 Billion to the fund. It is said to be reliant on proceeds from the first Vision Fund in order to bankroll the contribution.
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