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.