SoftBank Group
Japanese investment holding company / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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SoftBank Group Corp. (ソフトバンクグループ株式会社, SofutoBanku Gurūpu Kabushiki gaisha) is a Japanese multinational investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management.[2] The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services to customers in a multitude of markets and industries ranging from the internet to automation.[3] With over $100 billion in capital at its onset, SoftBank’s Vision Fund is the world's largest technology-focused venture capital fund. Fund investors included sovereign wealth funds from countries in the Middle East.[4][5][6]
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 Tokyo Shiodome Building, SoftBank's former global headquarters in Tokyo | |
Native name | ソフトバンクグループ株式会社 |
|---|---|
Romanized name | SofutoBanku Gurūpu Kabushiki gaisha |
| Type | Public KK |
| |
| ISIN | JP3436100006 |
| Industry | Conglomerate |
| Founded | 3 September 1981; 41 years ago (1981-09-03) |
| Founder | Masayoshi Son |
| Headquarters | Tokyo PortCity Takeshiba, , Japan |
Key people | Masayoshi Son (Chairman and CEO) |
| Products | |
| Revenue |  US$56.832 billion (2020)[1] |
 US$−12.539 billion (2020)[1] | |
| US$−7.357 billion (2020)[1] | |
| Total assets |  US$342.34 billion (2020)[1] |
| Total equity | US$67.747 billion (2020)[1] |
| Owner |
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Number of employees | 80,909 (2020)[1] |
| Subsidiaries |
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| Website | group |
The company is known for the leadership of its controversial[7][8][9][10] founder and largest shareholder Masayoshi Son.[11][12][13] Its investee companies, subsidiaries and divisions, including several unprofitable unicorns,[14][15] operate in robotics, artificial intelligence, software, logistics, transportation, biotechnology, robotic process automation, proptech, real estate, hospitality, broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-commerce, information technology, finance, media and marketing, and other areas.[16] Among its most internationally recognizable current stockholdings are stakes in Arm[17] (semiconductors), Alibaba[18] (e-commerce), OYO Rooms[19] (hospitality), WeWork[20] (coworking) and Deutsche Telekom[21] (telecommunications). SoftBank Corporation, its spun-out affiliate and former flagship business, is the third-largest wireless carrier in Japan, with 45.621 million subscribers as of March 2021.[22] Poor investment decisions of Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group led to a panoply of losing investments across the history of the company.[23]
SoftBank was ranked in the 2017 Forbes Global 2000 list as the 36th largest public company in the world[24] and the second-largest publicly traded company in Japan after Toyota.[25]
The logo of SoftBank is based on the flag of the Kaientai, a naval trading company founded in 1865, near the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, by Sakamoto Ryōma.[26]
Although SoftBank does not affiliate itself to any traditional keiretsu, it has close ties with Mizuho Financial Group, its primary lender.[27]