Despite its strategic emphasis on AI investments, SoftBank has shocked investors with its posts of consecutive quarterly losses, a setback that hampered the prominent Japanese bank's artificial intelligence ventures.
Softbank's financial performance and ambitious AI investment plans are called into doubt by the unanticipated total quarterly loss and the ongoing losses in the current investment division. A key component of SoftBank's investment plan, The Vision Funds, showed a gain of $0.8 billion for the quarter. Shared assets, such as ARM holdings, are included in this gain.
The Latin American fund, Vision Fund 1, and Vision Fund 2 of SoftBank, however, combined suffered a quarterly investment loss of 13 billion yen ($91 million) when pooled assets were excluded, per TechCrunch. This loss is much less than the 2,919 billion yen ($20 billion) deficit announced one year ago.
Big Time Losses
Softbank's three core funds lost $6.3 billion by June 30. Despite expectations of a return to profitability, the SoftBank Group announced a net loss of 477.6 billion yen ($3.3 billion).
Yoshimitsu Goto, the firm's chief financial officer, recognized the difficulties, noting that the company is "carefully and slowly" returning to investment ventures, according to CNBC. In order to stress the strategic relevance of artificial intelligence in SoftBank's subsequent undertakings, he highlighted Softbank's sustained attention to the AI trend.
Pledges amounting to $166.2 billion have been made throughout the LatAm fund, Vision Fund 1, and Vision Fund 2 combined. With the fair worth of the assets now estimated at $140.3 billion, SoftBank determined its purchase expenses to be $146.6 billion.
Vision Funds 1 and 2 incurred losses for the most recent quarter of 38.749 billion yen ($270 million) and 46.860 billion yen ($327 million), respectively, according to SoftBank. In comparison, the LatAm fund made a profit of 47.496 billion yen ($331 million) while receiving 25.070 billion yen ($174 million) from other investments. Notably, the sale of Pismo, one of SoftBank's portfolio businesses, to Visa for $1 billion in June gave the Latin American fund a big boost.
The share prices of stakes in significant businesses, including Alibaba, Deutsche Telekom, and T-Mobile US, all saw reductions throughout the quarter, which increased the total investment losses. SoftBank's overall investment loss for the quarter increased, reaching 699 billion yen (just under $4.9 billion).
Softbank Keeps Positive Outlook on AI Investments
SoftBank's first Vision Fund has produced more encouraging outcomes despite these difficulties. The "fair value" of the over $90 billion fund's 94 assets is split roughly between $37.5 billion in private enterprises, $20.5 billion in publicly traded companies, and $44.2 billion in exits. But at $32.2 billion, the fair value of the $108 billion Vision Fund 2 is far less.
Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son announced the Tokyo-based firm's planned strategic counteroffensive at the firm's annual shareholders meeting in June, according to Wall Street Journal. The company, which has been cautious owing to market circumstances, intends to make intelligent investments while focusing on the AI trend.
