SoftBank’s Vision Fund recovers with $3.6b gain in Q3

Photo credit: SoftBank

The SoftBank Vision Fund has posted a gain of US$3.6 billion during the December quarter, after being in the red in the first half of 2023.

Of this amount, Vision Fund 1 made US$1.9 billion, while Vision Fund 2 posted a gain of US$1.7 billion. In total, both funds sold investments worth US$19.5 billion in the period, including full exits from 13 portfolio companies.

One of the exits is through Chip designer Arm, which went public in 2023. Arm recorded US$2.1 billion in net sales for the nine-month period ending December 2023, a 13% year-on-year rise.

Driven by these numbers, Vision Fund parent firm SoftBank Group reported a net income of US$6.3 billion during the December quarter, a turnaround from the US$5.2 billion loss during the same period in 2022. The company’s financial year ends on March 31.

While Vision Fund 1 has investments in companies such as ByteDance, DiDi, GoTo, and Grab, Vision Fund 2 has made bets on Carro, Cars24, and Flipkart.

Apart from Arm’s listing, another highlight of the quarter was SoftBank’s receipt of 48.8 million T-Mobile US shares in December. The windfall, which came at no additional cost, happened following T-Mobile US’ merger with SoftBank-owned telco Sprint.

SoftBank also made a shift in its strategy, focusing on an AI-centric portfolio after selling most of its stake in Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba.

Amid the bullish results, SoftBank’s share price rose by 11% to 7,350 yen (US$49.41) in Tokyo.

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