Japan’s SoftBank posts $5.9 billion loss as tech investment plummets

TOKYO (AP) – Japanese investor SoftBank Group reported on Tuesday that it slipped into a deep loss for the October-December quarter, slammed by the global slump in tech stocks.

SoftBank Group Corp. posted a loss of 783 billion yen ($5.9 billion) in the fiscal third quarter, a reversal of the 29 billion yen profit recorded in the same period last year.

SoftBank invests in hundreds of companies, including mobile operator SoftBank, web service provider Yahoo, rental car company Didi and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. It also operates the Vision Fund, which includes other global investors.

SoftBank Group reported investment losses of nearly 512 billion yen ($3.9 billion) during the quarter as the prices of its holdings and funds plummeted, it said.

Japanese companies have been hit by various uncertainties lately, such as: B. rising material costs and rising interest rates. Tensions like the war in Ukraine have also contributed to what tends to weigh negatively on SoftBank’s expansive investment portfolio.

Quarterly sales rose 6% year over year to 1.69 trillion yen ($12.8 billion).

Last year, the Tokyo-based SoftBank group raised money with Alibaba shares and the sale of shares in European telecoms company T-Mobile while exiting or partially exiting companies like Uber, the company said.

Earlier this month, group company Z Holdings decided to merge messaging app company Line and Yahoo Japan, a move aimed at fostering synergies and a better focus on products. Besides these two companies, Z Holdings also owns PayPay, a major Japanese mobile payment system.

SoftBank’s charismatic founder and CEO, Masayoshi Son, has often managed to turn his vision into a positive one, even in the most trying times.

He has said that betting your money on artificial intelligence, massive data and robotics will pay off as they pave the way for future innovation. He was one of the early adopters of the internet business long before the idea caught on in Japan.

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Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press

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