SoftBank books US$5.2 billion quarterly loss as investments and weak yen bite

SOFTBANK Group on Thursday (Nov 9) booked a US$5.22 billion loss, marking its fourth straight quarter in the red, as it wrote down the value of some investments and a weak yen lifted the cost of its dollar-denominated debt.

The results come even as the Japanese investment group managed to pull off the long-anticipated initial public offering (IPO) of chip designer Arm, although it did not record proceeds from that as earnings as Arm remains a subsidiary.

Its Vision Fund investment unit, meanwhile, booked an investment profit of 21.4 billion yen (S$192.3 million) in the latest quarter, having made a 160 billion yen profit three months earlier.

The small profit in the Vision Fund segment was thanks Vision Fund 1 (SVF1) selling its 25 per cent stake in Arm to the parent.

Excluding the gains from Arm, the Vision Funds collectively made a loss of 583 billion yen.

SoftBank was hit by the weakening yen due to its exposure to US dollar-denominated liabilities, leading to a loss of 648 billion yen.

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The net loss at group level of 789 billion yen compares with a 3.01 trillion yen profit a year earlier, when it sold down a large portion of its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. REUTERS