Japan's SoftBank returns to quarterly profit but unveils more Vision Fund pain

Japan's SoftBank Group Corp reported its archetypal quarterly nett successful 3 quarters, buoyed by the merchantability of immoderate of its involvement successful China's Alibaba adjacent arsenic its monolithic Vision Fund posted different dense quarterly loss.

The sprawling Vision Fund, which upended the satellite of exertion with its large bets connected startups, volition besides constitute down its investments successful troubled crypto speech FTX to zero, a root adjacent to SoftBank said, adding that those were little than $100 million.

The complications astatine FTX people the latest trouble for Vision Fund, which has been hammered successful caller quarters by a planetary tech rout, prompting SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son to sharply standard backmost caller investments.

Investment losses astatine flagship portion Vision Fund were 1.38 trillion yen ($9.75 billion) successful the 3 months to September 30 arsenic the worth of its portfolio continued to slide.

Son told a briefing that this would beryllium the past clip helium would talk astatine a post-earnings briefing for the "foreseeable future", adding that helium had nary wellness issues. SoftBank itself is synonymous with Son, who with his audacious bets connected everything from Chinese tech to startups similar WeWork has charted a people acold divergent from that of immoderate different Japanese company.

At SoftBank itself, nett net came to 3.03 trillion yen successful the July-September 2nd quarter. In the archetypal quarter, the radical had posted a 3.16 trillion yen loss.

Days aft unveiling the monolithic first-quarter loss, SoftBank said it would trim its Alibaba Group Holdings involvement to astir 15% from astir 24% by settling prepaid guardant contracts and publication an estimated summation of 4.6 trillion yen successful the 2nd quarter.

In the latest 4th the worth of immoderate of SoftBank's listed investments fell, including its stakes successful U.S. existent property broker Compass and Indonesia's biggest tech firm, GoTo, portion South Korean e-commerce steadfast Coupang was among the gainers.