The ties between Masayoshi Son, the Japanese founder of Softbank, and Jack Ma, the Chinese man behind e-commerce giant Alibaba, are straining. The fortune of the former was that they invested very early in the success of the latter. But the story turns.
Agreed Financial TimesSoftbank secured a $22 billion inflow of new money by selling options on a portion of its stake in Alibaba. This would allow it to restore its financial health while maintaining the ability to eventually buy back its Alibaba stake.
There was urgency. Having been hit hard by a slump in tech stocks around the world, Softbank last May posted a record $27 billion loss on the value of its massive investment Vision Fund. Masayoshi So then promised investors he would definitely bring in cash rather than continue betting on tech stocks.
This is not the first time that a Japanese fund has used Alibaba’s forward sales. In recent years, thanks to this system of options, he would have already sold half of his stake in the Chinese giant. The question today is whether Softbank will be able to maintain a sufficient level of participation to retain its seat on Alibaba’s board of directors. Softbank, which had to face the difficulties of WeWork, still has beautiful pears from thirst. After merging US carrier Sprint with T-Mobile, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, he sold part of T-Mobile’s holdings. It also hopes to quickly list its UK-based Arm, which specializes in semiconductors, after it is forced to abandon its $40 billion sale to Nvidia.
Source: Le Figaro
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.