Admitting his fault, Masayoshi Son still thinks that WeWork is not a complete disaster. (Image via TechCrunch)

Son admits poor decisions as SoftBank's profit dives

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Market & Investment
New Investment
Nov 07, 2019
3066
In the Q2 of 2019, SoftBank Group recorded operating loss as much as ¥704.4 billion, the biggest loss since the foundation of the Japanese holding company. The CEO of SoftBank Group, Masayoshi Son, stated on Wednesday, shortly after the figures were revealed, that he was partly to blame as well.

The first half operating loss amounted to ¥572.6 billion was due to the tricky investments in WeWork, Uber, and three of its associates by SoftBank Vision Fund and Delta Fund that ended in debacles.

The net profit from six months to September also saw a 49.8 percent decrease to ¥421.6 billion with an operating loss of ¥15.6 billion.

In the press conference, Son admitted that he made poor investment decisions. However, the SoftBank CEO still defended his strategy and stated that WeWork’s investment was not overall bad, having quoted data from some analysts.

WeWork, launched in 2010, offers a revolutionary, flexible working space arrangement. It operates in 111 cities in 29 countries. However, WeWork’s short-term, flexible leases were frowned upon by the investors, referring to it as their liability.

WeWork gradually showed poor performances from the cancelation of its IPO until the most recent when Adam Neumann, the co-founder of WeWork, was forced to resign.

However, Son refused to call WeWork a “sinking ship”. Last month, SoftBank confirmed an agreement with WeWork that it had injected billions of dollars into WeWork, despite its fall from grace. In exchange, SoftBank increased its stake from 29 percent to 80 percent and appointed Marcelo Claure as executive chairman.

Source: https://bit.ly/2PRdn7j