China Times (www.chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Qiu Li and Chen Feng Beijing report
SoftBank Group recently disclosed financial report showing that its Vision Fund's losses continue to expand, and Japanese venture capital tycoon Masayoshi Son was "cut off" by a 30-year-old man in the currency circle again, and his investment of 700 million yuan may be lost. SoftBank Group cashed out Alibaba 270 billion yuan to "rescue" and turned losses into profits in the second quarter. Chen Jia, an independent international strategy researcher, told the reporter of " China Times " that SoftBank Vision Fund suffered huge losses, and Masayoshi Son's investment philosophy is the main reason; the market environment amplifies his investment mistakes, and the structural problems of the US stock technology sector and the deep crisis in the currency circle have exposed his shortcomings.
Vision Fund lost 220 billion yuan in investment in half a year
SoftBank Group disclosed its first half fiscal year (April to September) report on November 11. The financial report showed that SoftBank Group's net revenue was 3.18 trillion yen, or approximately RMB 160.8 billion, and increased 6.7% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was about 6.5 billion yuan, while net profit in the same period last year was 18.3 billion yuan.
Specifically in the second fiscal quarter, SoftBank finally bid farewell to its losses and achieved a net profit of 3.03 trillion yen from July to September, or approximately RMB 153 billion, setting a new profit record. However, the reason why the second fiscal quarter was able to turn losses into profits was mainly due to selling Alibaba stocks to obtain nearly 270 billion yuan, and other investment returns were still not satisfactory.
It is worth noting that the most prestigious venture capital fund under SoftBank Group has expanded its losses and has suffered huge losses for three consecutive quarters, which is also the direct reason for the collapse of SoftBank Group's performance.
financial report shows that the Vision Fund's investment losses in the first half of the fiscal year were 4.35 trillion yen, or approximately RMB 220 billion. Investment in the second fiscal quarter lost 1.02 trillion yen (approximately RMB 50 billion), and the loss of increased by 20% year-on-year compared with . In the quarter just ended, the top three losses of Vision Fund Phase I came from the first phase of SenseTime Technology , the leader of China's four AI dragons, lost 364 billion yen (approximately RMB 18.4 billion), the American takeaway company Doordash lost 225 billion yen (approximately RMB 11.4 billion), and the Indonesian car-hailing and e-commerce GoTo Group lost 108.2 billion yen (approximately RMB 5.4 billion).
two major reasons led to performance Waterloo
65-year-old Masayoshi Son said at the financial report meeting: "Listed stocks and unlisted stocks are almost wiped out, and Vision Fund has also been significantly hit." The huge losses also cast a shadow on 's stock price . At the close of November 14, SoftBank Group fell 10.74%.
Overall, there are two main reasons for the collapse of SoftBank Group's performance: on the one hand, technology stock is facing a dark moment. SoftBank has always been the world's most radical technology investor, but now it has almost stopped new investments, and the world's largest venture capital institution sounded the clarion call for "retreat".
On the other hand, as SoftBank’s debt is USD, the sharp depreciation of the yen has pushed up its USD-denominated debt value. Market insiders believe that SoftBank Group's huge losses are the indirect consequences of the Fed's interest rate hike in .
Dean of the In-depth Science and Technology Research Institute Zhang Xiaorong analyzed to the reporter of the China Times that SoftBank Group is facing a "mid-life crisis", and its performance collapse represents the end of an era. Masayoshi Son started his business because of investing in the Internet. In recent years, the prosperity of the Internet industry has declined and investment opportunities have shrunk significantly. Some new projects invested by SoftBank have failed and exploded continuously, making it difficult to fundamentally reverse the company's long-term losses. In the future, it may continue to sell Alibaba stocks to cash out and "rescue yourself".
Zhang Xiaorong also pointed out that many emerging industries are currently rising, and new giants have appeared, but the LP behind them has disappeared. SoftBank’s era may have come to an end.
Chen Jia said that on a deeper level, Masayoshi Son has failed repeatedly, which is behind the rapid bursting of the US technology bubble in the past two years, and the rapid fall of technology stocks is also related to the operation of large companies in general using to increase their holdings in to drive stock prices before the Federal Reserve raises interest rates.
sells Alibaba to cash out 270 billion yuan and turn losses into profits
faces huge losses and debt crisis . Reducing holdings to Alibaba has become a life-saving straw for Son.
From the perspective of the market value of the holding company, the biggest change between April and September was Alibaba's share of SoftBank's assets, which dropped sharply from 23% to 15%. Just a few years ago, SoftBank held more than 30% of Alibaba's stake in .
SoftBank cashed out a total of 270 billion yuan by selling Alibaba shares. This move also brought large investment returns to SoftBank Group, covering up losses in other businesses, and helping SoftBank turn losses into profits in the second quarter.
Chen Jia said that regarding extreme decisions such as selling Alibaba stocks, Masayoshi Son himself hinted that technology stocks are currently at a low point, which is a good time to invest, but he had to make a choice. Fortunately, Alibaba has temporarily overcome difficulties through dual listing decisions and a series of future strategic operations and other protective strategies, and new strategic investors will appear in the market in the future.
Chen Jia also pointed out that there are obvious differences between SoftBank Masayoshi's investment style and the investment styles of Berkshire Buffett and Munger . The latter is the founder of the value investment law and is also one of the very few unswerving practitioners in the global market. Although both have invested in technology stocks such as Alibaba, unlike Masayoshi Son's concept of investing in with a substantial arbitrage transaction in pure financial investment, Buffett has always emphasized the avoidance of pursuing short-term arbitrage investment behavior, but rather pursuing long-term investment value, and its financial operations are corresponding.
To a certain extent, Masayoshi Son's investment strategy is exactly what Buffett opposes. For example, Buffett seriously opposes investment in the currency circle, which actually reveals a philosophical reason for the recent failure of Masayoshi Son's investment currency circle.
700 million yuan investment in the currency circle may lose all its money
3 stumbled overnight , SoftBank was involved in the "Lehman Crisis" in the currency circle, and its vision phase II "stepped on the mine" cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and nearly 700 million yuan investment may lose all its money.
data shows that SoftBank Vision Fund participated in FTX's B financing last year, and also participated in a new round of financing this year. FTX is the world's second largest cryptocurrency trading platform. Just last year, FTX founder Sam, who was only 29 years old, ranked 274th on the 2021 Forbes Global Rich List with a net worth of US$8.7 billion.
But after all, I couldn't survive this winter. The founder has resigned and the currency exchange FTX announced bankruptcy. Sequoia Capital , which also "stepped on the mine", has two funds , invested a total of more than 1.549 billion yuan in FTX, and recently announced that it will be processed as zero. Market insiders pointed out that SoftBank will also write down the investment in FTX to zero in the next fiscal quarter.
In response to this, SoftBank CFO said at the financial report meeting that SoftBank's investment in FTX equity exceeded 700 million yuan, mainly from the investment in Vision Phase II. He further stated that SoftBank has currently invested less in the cryptocurrency field, and the current investment scale in this field accounts for only 1.3% of the two Vision Fund.
Chen Jia said that although the FTX incident was accidental, Masayoshi Son's risky investment behavior made him ignore the structural risks in the currency industry. His short-term arbitrage investment philosophy has almost completely gone bankrupt.
technology stocks plummeted, the yen depreciated, and the currency circle suffered heavy losses. This year, he has been hit by a series of "thunders" and Masayoshi Son, who has suffered heavy losses, began to lay off employees for the winter. His always aggressive investment strategy has also changed to defense, and decided to keep a low profile and announced that he would no longer host the financial report press conference. Among the three pillars of SoftBank Group's growth, after Alibaba and Vision Fund have gradually "lost" one after another, their energy will be focused on the development of Arm semiconductor companies in the next few years.
Editor: Yan Hui Editor-in-chief: Xia Shencha
