News for SOFTBANK GROUP CORP. (SFT.DU)

The financial startup made a $350 million loan in 2019 to General Atlantic, Greensill’s second largest outside investor after SoftBank’s Vision Fund.

Z Holdings plans to merge its PayPay and Line Pay cashless payment services by April next year.

(Bloomberg) -- SoftBank Group Corp.’s Chief Strategy Officer Katsunori Sago is planning to quit after less than three years at the company, as other executives gain prominence at the Japanese investment conglomerate.The Goldman Sachs veteran who joined SoftBank in June 2018 will resign on March 31, SoftBank said in a statement late on Friday. The Tokyo-based company was confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg News.The 53-year-old is a key member of founder Masayoshi Son’s inner circle and something of a celebrity in Japan’s world of finance. Prior to joining SoftBank, Sago spent more than two decades at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., rising to become vice chairman of its operations in the country. During a three-year stint at state-owned Japan Post Bank Co., he spearheaded a portfolio shift away from sovereign bonds.But little is known about his work at SoftBank. The company has never clearly defined his role as CSO, a position that did not exist prior to his joining. Over the past few years, he has assembled a small team of former Goldman bankers and set up an investment department in April.“Sago-san dedicated himself to a variety of projects by bringing a whole new perspective as SBG transforms into a strategic investment holding company,” Son said in the statement. “He played a crucial part in expanding SBG’s potential as an investment company.”Rumors about his departure began to circulate late last year as Sago seemed increasingly adrift while other Son lieutenants, including Chief Operating Officer Marcelo Claure and Vision Fund head Rajeev Misra, began to take more prominent roles in public markets and startup investment.In November, SoftBank said Sago and three other directors will leave the board in an effort to increase the proportion of outside directors and improve corporate governance. The executive earned 1.11 billion yen ($10.2 million) in the year ended March 2020, a 13% increase from the previous year.Sago’s the latest in a string of executive departures at the group. In January, Bloomberg News learned that Vision Fund managing partner Colin Fan, a former Deutsche Bank AG banker who’d focused on technology bets, was leaving along with Jeff Housenbold, the managing partner involved in its bets on startups including DoorDash Inc. and dog-walking startup Wag. Fan had overseen the fund’s investment in troubled lender Greensill Capital.Read More: SoftBank Executive Colin Fan Steps Back From Vision FundThe Vision Fund decided to cut headcount by as much as 15% last year in a round of job cuts after the business reported an $18 billion loss because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The cuts disproportionately focused on employees who supported portfolio companies, people familiar with the matter said at the time. Claure’s SoftBank Group International arm reduced its staff by 26 out of 230, a person familiar with the matter said.(Updates with background on previous executive departures in final two paragraphs)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Few fortunes are as volatile as Masayoshi Son’s. The SoftBank Group Corp. founder was briefly richer than Bill Gates at the start of the century before tec

Can Masayoshi Son restart 2021 with a clean slate and re-emerge as the premier venture capitalist? The jury is out.Even if its stock price has hit dot-com bubble levels, there are aging unicorns hanging around in its Fund. Also, SoftBank’s attempt to ride the SPAC boom comes across as flawed.

Credit Suisse knew since 2019 that supply-chain finance funds it ran with Greensill were too reliant on a small group of insurers to protect investors against default and failed to remedy the situation, according to people familiar with the funds.

SoftBank managed to raise only $600 million last year in the US SPAC boom. Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist and social influencer, raised $2.1 billion in one October day alone.

By Caitlin Ostroff U.S. stock futures edged lower Thursday as investors awaited comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell about the outlook for inflation and the central bank's...

The surge is closely tied to the rally in SoftBank shares, which represent more than 95% of his net worth and have climbed almost fourfold from a low at the worst of the pandemic-fueled selloff

(Bloomberg) -- Few fortunes are as volatile as Masayoshi Son’s.The SoftBank Group Corp. founder was briefly richer than Bill Gates at the start of the century before tech stocks crashed. In March 2020, as markets sank under Covid-19 and questions swirled over SoftBank’s investments, his wealth dipped to $8.4 billion, the lowest since 2016.Less than a year later, Japan’s second-richest person has more than quadrupled his fortune to $38 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, hitting the highest level since Bloomberg started tracking billionaire wealth in 2012.The surge is closely tied to the rally in SoftBank shares, which represent more than 95% of his net worth and have climbed almost fourfold from a low at the worst of the pandemic-fueled selloff. The Vision Fund -- the world’s largest investment pool for tech startups -- posted its best quarterly profit, while SoftBank sold assets, bought back stock and settled a legal dispute with WeWork Cos. It’s also gathered supporters along the way, with Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp. disclosing last year it took a stake as the stock was undervalued.“SoftBank’s current major assets have huge cashflow and will continue to grow,” said Thomas Hayes, chairman of Great Hill Capital. “If he balances his harvesting of winners, with appropriately timed share repurchases, he will avoid a repeat of 2000, even if tech stocks moderate.”SoftBank’s fate has been deeply intertwined with its founder, to the point the relationship recently raised corporate-governance concerns. Son, who’s also chairman and chief executive officer, is personally invested in a unit that poured about $20 billion into tech stocks and derivatives. The 63-year-old, who owns one-third of that division and has denied there was a conflict of interest, said the program was a way to put SoftBank’s cash pile to use.To amplify his leverage, Son uses a common tactic among the ultra-rich -- borrowing against his stock. He just does it much more than most other billionaires.Recently, though, he’s trimmed his pledges as shares of the Japanese giant have become more valuable. Son had committed about one-third of his stake in SoftBank to more than 16 financial institutions as of Feb. 9, down from 38% in September, according to regulatory filings. That still represents about $18 billion -- one of the highest figures among the 500 richest people in the world. The pledges are used as collateral for loans, whose size could be smaller than the value of the committed shares given the recent rally. Bloomberg doesn’t include the value of pledged stock in net-worth calculations.A representative for SoftBank declined to comment for this story.After closing at an all-time high on Wednesday, SoftBank shares slipped 5.3% Thursday amid a decline in the broader stock market. Its Vision Fund last month posted a record profit for the final quarter of 2020, thanks to a boost in the value of its stakes in newly-listed firms including food-delivery service DoorDash Inc. and Chinese online property agent platform KE Holdings Inc.“Since the Vision Fund launched, the number of golden eggs is in accelerating mode,” Son said at a briefing last month. “We are finally in the harvesting stage.”Some 15 companies have gone public from the Vision Fund, and SoftBank may see between 10 and 20 listings a year from its portfolio of 164 startups, he said. Coupang Inc., a South Korean e-commerce giant, is seeking a U.S. IPO and could be valued at more than $50 billion. Compass Inc., one of the largest U.S. real estate brokerages, has filed for a listing, and Chinese truck startup Full Truck Alliance could go public this year. SoftBank has also joined the SPAC bandwagon with plans for several blank-check companies.SoftBank has also had its share of troubles. The Vision Fund has written down its $1.5 billion holding in Greensill Capital and is considering dropping the valuation to near zero, people familiar with the matter have said. At its worst point last year, investors questioned several of SoftBank’s investments, including WeWork, whose IPO spectacularly imploded.The turnaround has been rapid. In addition to improving the outlook for the startups in the Vision Fund, the rally in tech stocks helped boost the value of SoftBank’s stakes in publicly traded firms like Uber Technologies Inc. The Japanese conglomerate also just settled a lawsuit with WeWork and its co-founder, Adam Neumann, paving the way for another attempt at a potential listing of the office-sharing company.“SoftBank Group may expedite its second attempt to list WeWork,” Anthea Lai, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote in a March 1 note. “The additional stake should tighten SoftBank’s control and facilitate potential merger talks with special purpose acquisition companies.”(Updates with stock move in 10th paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

The concept that it often makes good business sense to delay paying suppliers, keeping cash free for other purposes, has been taken to new levels of complexity. A global industry has grown up of financial go-betweens who buy unpaid invoices at a discount. The firms give vendors cash sooner than if they’d waited for customers to pay -- if they’re willing to accept less than what they’re owed. Supply chain financing, as it’s known, is heralded by its champions as a “win-win” for all sides, but cri

The embattled financial startup plans to file for insolvency as it simultaneously moved toward a deal to sell its operating business to Apollo Global Management.

Pressure mounted on the embattled SoftBank-backed financial firm as it scrambled to sell core parts of its business and regulators intensified supervision of its banking unit.

Compass Inc., a SoftBank-backed company that’s among the largest real estate brokerages in the U.S., filed for an initial public offering, disclosing growing revenue and shrinking losses. The New York-based startup in its filing Monday listed the size of the offering as $500 million, a…

Compass, the eight-year-old real estate brokerage company filed for a listing on the New York Stock Exchange this week

With a combined user base of about 150 million in Japan, the merger of Z Holdings and Line will create one of the biggest information technology companies in the country.

The Swiss bank has grown concerned about the speciality finance firm’s exposure to a single client.

Beijing-based Didi is considering rolling out ride-sharing services in markets that could include the UK, France and Germany by the first half of this year.Shares in rival Uber Technologies Inc. slumped 3.7% in US trading on Wednesday