SoftBank Group – The Famous Multinational Conglomerate Founded By A Young Japanese Entrepreneur.
Founded in 1981, SoftBank Group is one of the largest multinational conglomerates based in Japan. The company generates annual revenue of more than $50 billion and employs approximately 80,000 people worldwide. Masayoshi Son, a Japanese tech entrepreneur, founded the company when he was 24-year old. Currently, the headquarters of the company is located in Minato, Tokyo and it mainly focuses on investment management. The major sectors where SoftBank mainly invests are finance, energy, and tech. SoftBank Group is also responsible for running the world’s largest tech-based venture capital fund, Vision Fund where the main investors belong to the Middle Eastern countries.
Early Days Of SoftBank Group
SoftBank Group, today, is the second-largest publicly-traded company in Japan after Toyota. Back in 1981, when Masayoshi Son founded SoftBank, it operated as a software distributor. After a year, SoftBank entered into the publishing business and launched a couple of magazines about NEC and Sharp computers. By 1989, SoftBank became the largest magazine publisher in the computer and tech category. The company decided to go public in 1994 when the company was valued at $3 million. Next year, it acquired a publishing company. Ziff Davis for $2.1 billion and expanded its market to the US.
After buying Ziff Davis, the company bought COMDEX for $800 million and later sold it to Key3Media. Masayoshi Son made a huge investment in internet services during the 1990s and entered into a joint venture with Yahoo! In 1996. This partnership led to the creation of Yahoo! Japan, a very popular website in the country. SoftBank became a holding company in 1999 and in 2000 it invested a huge amount in Alibaba that turned into a big profit. In the 21st century, Son decided to expand the Asian market and started with an investment in multiple Korean companies that provides internet services.
Expansion And Acquisition
Since Son was heavily investing in the internet and telecommunication market, SoftBank Group decided to acquire Vodafone Japan in 2005. This acquisition made SoftBank a very dominating company in Japan’s telecom operator’s business. After acquiring Vodafone Japan, SoftBank also acquired a 23% stake in Betfair and entered a collaboration with Tiffany & Co. In 2010, SoftBank acquired a 13.7% stake in Ustream. After a couple of years, the company announced that it is planning to acquire Sprint Nextel (70% stake) which during the final agreement became 78%. Later, the company acquired more shares and owned 80% of the company.
In 2013, the company acquired a 51% stake in Supercell and heavily invested in OlaCabs, Snapdeal, and Housing.com. The same year, it acquired a controlling stake in Aldeberan Robotics and renamed the company SoftBank Robotics. In 2015, Son decided to bring Nikesh Arora, a former Google Executive onboard and made him the Representative Director and President of SoftBank. Since SoftBank was investing in Korean companies, the company decided to invest $1 billion in Coupang, a Korean e-commerce website. In 2016, SoftBank announced the plans to acquire ARM Holdings for $32 billion which was the company’s largest deal in its history. The same year Son had a meeting with Former US President, Donald Trump after which SoftBank decided to invest $50 billion in the US market to create jobs.
Present Days
In 2021, SoftBank announced a huge profit of approximately $37 billion from its Vision Fund and the Korean e-commerce website, Coupang. The annual profit of SoftBank in the financial year 20-21 was the largest recorded profit in the industrial history of Japan. The company has planned a series of acquisitions in 2021 which includes the acquisition of stakes in AutoStore, Yanolja (a Korean hotel booking platform), etc. SoftBank has also decided to sell its T-Mobile US shares to Deutsche Telekom.
About The Founder
Masayoshi Son is a famous Japanese billionaire, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He received Japanese citizenship in 1990 and he was born on a Japanese island, Kyushu in 1957. Currently, Son is the second richest man in Japan and the 68th richest man across the world according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. At the age of sixteen, Son left for California and studied at the University of California, Berkeley. While he was a student, he was interested in technology and entrepreneurship and created his first electronic translator and sold it to Sharp Corporation.
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