Softbank Group said that in the last fiscal year as of the end of March, the company’s investment in WeWork lost about 700 billion yen (about 6.6 billion U.S. dollars). The net loss is expected to expand to 900 billion yen (about 8.4 billion US dollars).
Earlier this month, Softbank predicted that the company ’s annual operating loss would hit a record 1.35 trillion yen due to the investment losses of its Vision Fund. Softbank still maintains this expectation unchanged.
Last year, WeWork’s initial public offering (IPO) was unsuccessful, and SoftBank also abandoned its plan to acquire WeWork shares for $ 3 billion.
So far, SoftBank has invested more than US $ 13.5 billion in WeWork. The huge investment in WeWork is one of a series of bets by Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son. Such bets have exhausted SoftBank’s full-year earnings and put it under financial pressure, and now the company is being hit by the coronavirus outbreak. .
To support SoftBank’s stock price, the company has repurchased 2.5 trillion yen of company stock. As of the end of December last year, SoftBank’s interest-bearing debt was as high as $ 160 billion.