SoftBank Group has taken another multibillion-dollar hit from its ambitious but costly bets on once high-flying companies like Uber and WeWork, putting growing pressure on the Japanese conglomerate to get its financial house in order.
The company, which has used its $100 billion Vision Fund to dominate the world of technology investment, has become a target for hedge fund giant Elliott Management, which has been urging changes at the Japanese firm, including governance overhauls and stock buybacks.
On Wednesday, SoftBank may have given Elliott another reason to complain. It said the Vision Fund and other investments cost its bottom line 225.1 billion yen, or about $2 billion, in the final three months of last year.
Overall, SoftBank reported a profit of about $501 million for the quarter, well short of what investors had expected. Its profit was less than one-tenth of what it had posted one year earlier. Its operating profit fell 99 percent.
In November, SoftBank said it had lost $4.6 billion on its investment in WeWork, the office space tech company whose initial public offering imploded spectacularly last fall after the revelation of serious governance issues, including allegations of self-dealing by the company’s chief executive.
The results came one day after a judge in the United States approved a merger between Sprint, which SoftBank controls, and T-Mobile, another American wireless carrier.