Softbank is a sort of messiah in the startup world doling out cash to promising brands to turn stars out of them and why not?
Sun’s initial 20 million investment in Alibaba ballooned to 100 billion USD later on at its IPO. That birthed the movement.
But the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the faultlines and made Softbank into a critic’s piece. Look at the image for instance.
There’s a lot of exposure. The $100 billion vision fund is weak as of the moment.
The virus is also a point of tension between the US and China and the latest casualty could be Huawei.
If it goes the same way SoftBank would have no choice than wind itself up.
Taking losses there was a 17 billion write down of the fund. The fund isn’t great at investing money but raising money and that’s a cause of prime concern.
The loss wiped out the gains that the Saudi and UAE backed fund accumulated since launch 3 years ago.
The biggest question that remains to be answered now is can Saudi stem its losses?
The fund takes into account Apple, Qualcomm and Foxconn as investors have shown us a number of problems with its 88 plus investments. Some of these problems like WeWork’s collapse are obvious. For instance We work had one of the biggest money pie. And its valuation slashed from 47 billion to 7.7 billion USD.
The IPO went bust. Oyo is another startup in trouble because the hotel’s startup clearly lacks either enough bookings or vision to see itself through.
Another investment is the ride sharing community company Didi which too is nursing its wounds.
The gap between investment worth and value is shocking.
The present value of the investments could just be two fifths.
Yangtze Memory is the top silicon chip maker in China. Presently the quality of chips is at par with the likes of samsung moving china closer to the goal of a full fledged semiconductor industry.
They want to create a domestic semiconductor industry and that means Apple and Google are joining hands to make that possible.
The UN partnership with Tencennt is raising privacy concerns and validating surveillance.
Coronavirus is making automation possible faster. The services industry like restaurants and others are embracing the emerging trends with robot nurses and robot staff in the restaurants.
There are also changing norms like doctor consultations. Earlier people don’t prefer that and now there’s evidence that more and more consultations are going the online route. There are no restrictions ow.
However there’s trouble in the auto sector which could push Germany into a recession and troubles for China and Japan.
Renault excused itself from a joint venture with BYD because it forecast a profit fall.
The Oyo startup’s founder Ritesh Agrawal is the nation’s youngest self made billionaire.
The coronavirus could also speed up the digital silk road in China.
THe pandemic is being seen and used as an advantage fuelling the growth of the nation. The national industrial strategy is competing with US’s competivie position.
Also some chinese companies are corrupting their balance sheets to falsify balance sheets and pump in millions of dollars in sales without reason or doubt.
The company’s fall from grace showed that the saging price had mounted this defense.
THe problem? Revenue doesn’t solve problems as the more revenue they had the more people were buying the more money it lost of each product.
The presentation that Son gave after Softbank’s announcement that Jack Ma had left the board of the company. The news followed by earnings report that posted its first loss in 15 years. This is the biggest for any Japanese company.
SoftBank posted a loss of 12.7 billion uSD in the year ended March 31. Previously in 2018 the profit was an estimated 19.6 billion dollars.
The results were on the back of the money spent on startups like WeWork and Uber. Uber too displayed dismal financial results.
Softbank had warned that the $100 billion vision fund would post losses. They posted at 17.7 billion USD loss.
Softbannk said that the virus made forecast difficult for bracing medium term impact of the company’s business on financial results.
The problems with the fund upended investment vehicles writing checks to tech companies. This poked holes into the overly large ambitions that pushed them to make a profit.
The company italy used the collateral got by ALibaba to tn th firm it the largest tech investor the world has seen. Eventually Said and UAW too invested in to the funds pumping money to pesky startups.
The coronavirus has beeen eating away at Son’s dreams eating away at both supply and demand. The virus has destroyed much of tourism and other industries. Uber laid of 3000 employees and closed 45 offices around the world
Now the coronavirus has threatened to destroy Mr. Son’s dream. It has drained huge This has also shifted focus from vc money to keep themselves growing and flourishing. Mor son sell that he would sell 41 billion in sets to bolster cash and buy more of its shares.
WIth the sales of the positions on Alibaba, will come the money for this.
Mr son has the undying support of the bank defending performance and calling the pandemic nothing more than a minor disruption to the way larger things operate.
The power point presentation egan with a small description of the great depression before coming to point.
The virus has raised layoffs and dropped traffic to restaurants and hotels in Son’s books.