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        <title><![CDATA[SoftBank CEO says ‘unicorns’ fell into ‘valley of the coronavirus’]]></title>
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        <link>https://usagag.com/2020/05/18/softbank-ceo-says-unicorns-fell-into-valley-of-the-coronavirus/</link>
        <lastBuildDate>Mon, 18 May 2020 17:12:18 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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            <media:title type="html">SoftBank CEO says ‘unicorns’ fell into ‘valley of the coronavirus’</media:title>
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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The coronavirus has claimed some of SoftBank&#8217;s &#8220;unicorns&#8221; as casualties &#8212; and its billionaire CEO used a fantasy-driven slide presentation to illustrate the problem.</p><p>The Japanese investment giant reported an $18 billion loss for its Vision Fund Monday after its buzzy &#8220;unicorn&#8221; tech startups like Uber and WeWork fell into what CEO Masayoshi Son called &#8220;the valley of the coronavirus.&#8221;</p><p>But Son predicted that some of his prized unicorns will make it to the other side of the &#8220;unprecedented&#8221; crisis even though it has caused their sales to drop and hurt their cash flow. He illustrated his point with an image of a lone winged unicorn jumping over a hole with two horned horses at the bottom.</p><p>&#8220;I believe some of them will fly over the valley,&#8221; Son said during a Monday earnings presentation.</p><p>Hits to the Vision Fund&#8217;s stakes in ride-hailing giant Uber and troubled office-sharing startup WeWork accounted for roughly $9.7 billion of its losses for the fiscal year that ended March 31.</p><p>Another $7.5 billion was linked to other firms in the Vision Fund portfolio, which includes DoorDash, Slack and TikTok parent ByteDance. All told, the value of the fund&#8217;s $75 billion worth of investments in 88 companies has dropped to $69.6 billion, SoftBank said.</p><figure id="attachment_15681083"  class="wp-caption aligncenter"><strong><noscript><img data- data-src="/uploads/2020/05/softbank-unicorns.png" class="lazyload" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" /><noscript><img  data-src="/uploads/2020/05/softbank-unicorns.png" /></noscript></noscript><img class="lazyload" src='data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22%20viewBox=%220%200%20210%20140%22%3E%3C/svg%3E' data- data-src="/uploads/2020/05/softbank-unicorns.png" /></strong><figcaption class="wp-caption-text"><span>SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son argued that some &#8220;unicorn&#8221; companies in which his firm has invested will make it through the coronavirus crisis.</span><span class="credit">SoftBank</span></figcaption></figure><p>SoftBank <strong>warned of the bleeding</strong> earlier this month after it backed away from a $3 billion tender offer to rescue WeWork, a move that drew a <strong>lawsuit from WeWork&#8217;s board</strong>. SoftBank also booked an impairment loss on the value of its WeWork investment outside of the Vision Fund.</p><p>SoftBank has also taken a beating from its stake in Uber, which <strong>posted a $3 billion loss</strong> in the first quarter and laid off some 3,700 employees as the pandemic caused its core ride-hailing business to plunge more than 80 percent.</p><p>SoftBank plans to raise 1.25 trillion yen (about $11.6 billion) against its investment in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, whose CEO Jack Ma <strong>is leaving SoftBank&#8217;s board</strong>. American hedge fund Elliott Management has been pressuring SoftBank to buy back shares and improve corporate governance.</p><p><em>With Post wires</em></p>]]></content:encoded>
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