Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
broken clouds
weather
OMAN
23°C / 23°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

SoftBank Group net profit down 70 per cent

1435587
1435587
minus
plus

TOKYO: Major Japanese technology investor SoftBank Group said on Wednesday its net profit plunged nearly 70 per cent for the nine months to December as investments in share companies such as WeWork and Uber took a hit.


Its bottom-line profit lost 69.0 per cent to 476.6 billion yen ($4.3 billion) for the period as the firm suffered an operating loss of 13.0 billion yen.


The operating loss was largely “due to a decrease in the fair values of investments including Uber and WeWork and its three affiliates,” the company said in a statement.


The company did not publish its outlook for the year to March 2020.


The disappointing results follow a turbulent period for the firm and CEO Masayoshi Son has faced criticism over his commitment to start-ups some say are overvalued and lack clear profit models.


SoftBank has taken stakes in some of Silicon Valley’s hottest start-ups through its $100 billion Vision Fund.


The group last year announced its long-mooted Vision Fund 2, again targeting around $100 billion, but investors have been slower to commit this time around.


In the second quarter to September, the group reported an operating loss of 704.4 billion yen, the worst in its history.


But it returned to the black for the three months to December, reporting 2.6 billion yen in operating profit, still down from 438.3 billion yen a year earlier. Shares in SoftBank Group have risen recently on news US hedge fund Elliott Management has built a more-than-$2.5 billion stake in the group.


— Reuters


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon