SoftBank Group swung to a quarterly profit, riding on gains from its bets on Nvidia and startups in a boon for founder Masayoshi Son’s bets on artificial intelligence technologies.
A recovery at SoftBank’s signature Vision Fund and the sale of assets such as its T-Mobile U.S. holdings are helping Son double down on bets geared to help him capitalize on booming investment in AI hardware. SoftBank, which had sold $4.8 billion worth of its stake in the U.S. telecom company in June, on Thursday revealed the sale of another $3 billion of the U.S. carrier’s stock.
The Tokyo-based company reported net income of ¥421.82 billion ($2.9 billion) in its fiscal first quarter, more than double the average of analyst estimates. The Vision Fund logged a ¥451.39 billion profit, helped by a recovery in tech valuations and gains on holdings such as Coupang, Auto1 Group SE, Symbotic and Swiggy.
