MASAYOSHI Son is due to make his first public appearance in seven months at SoftBank Group’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday (Jun 21), with cash-strapped startups wondering if the world’s biggest tech investor will ever go on the offensive again.

The debt-laden Tokyo-based conglomerate is hosting the meeting in person for the first time in four years. Son is scheduled to break a months-long silence after the billionaire bid adieu to earnings calls amid mounting losses to focus on taking Arm public.

Prospects for the chip design unit’s initial public offering have brightened recently, buoyed by hype around generative AI and talks with potential anchor investors including Intel. Arm is seeking to raise as much as US$10 billion, Bloomberg News reported, and brokerages are revising up their SoftBank stock price targets. The company’s shares have gained about 25 per cent so far in the June quarter, heading for their best quarterly performance in three years.

But the outlook for SoftBank’s flagship Vision Fund investment unit remains bleak. Slumping tech valuations have forced it to shoulder billions of dollars in losses for five straight quarters. Investments at SoftBank’s funds have ground to a virtual halt, forcing belt-tightening throughout the startup ecosystem.

SoftBank invested in seven startups through funding rounds totalling about US$550 million so far in the June quarter, data compiled by Bloomberg show. For reference, the Vision Fund segment spent US$15.6 billion in the same quarter just two years ago.

“Although the downside caused by geopolitical risks and other factors continues to be unpredictable, innovative information technologies keep evolving rapidly,” Son wrote in a letter to shareholders dated May 29. Son’s comment echoed previous remarks by chief financial officer Yoshimitsu Goto about the possibility of SoftBank shifting gears away from total defence.

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“While maintaining financial soundness, we will make investments that drive the information revolution, and strike a balance of ‘defence’ and ‘offence’,” Son said. BLOOMBERG