SoftBank returns to profit, Vision Fund remains in loss

by Kiyoshi Takenaka

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese group SoftBank said on Friday it returned to profit after two quarters in the red, thanks to the sale of part of its shares in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, but its investment fund Vision Fund still shows heavy losses.

And this fund, present in the capital of multiple start-ups around the world, has not finished with the disappointments since, according to a source close to the group, it is preparing to completely depreciate its participation in the FTX crypto-asset platform, who is currently struggling to avoid bankruptcy.

The source specified that this participation represented less than 100 million dollars (97.4 million euros).

The FTX file adds to several other major setbacks for Vision Fund, which has suffered for several months from falling valuations in the high-tech sector. An unfavorable context which has already led the general manager of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son, to revise the group’s investment budgets sharply.

Vision Fund plans to cut its workforce by more than 30%, its chief financial officer, Navneet Govil, announced on Friday.

Over the July-September quarter, the fund recorded losses on investments of 1,380 billion yen (9.63 billion euros), which brings the drop in the value of its portfolio to nearly 60 billion euros since the beginning of the year.

For its part, SoftBank generated a net profit of 3.030 billion yen over the period against a loss of 3.160 billion over the previous three months.

This result includes a capital gain estimated at 4.6 trillion yen linked to the reduction of the stake in Alibaba.

(Report Kiyoshi Takenaka, French version Marc Angrand, edited by Sophie Louet)