The move helped SoftBank shares soar 19% on March 23 and another 21% on March 24 though they are still 60% below their February 2000 dot-com peak when founder Masayoshi Son was, for three brief days, the world’s richest man with a net worth of US$72 billion at his peak. But in the aftermath of the Tech Wreck, SoftBank shares lost 98% of their value and Son struggled to avoid personal bankruptcy until a lucky break with Alibaba resurrected him and his Tokyo-listed flagship.
(Mar 27): If you are searching for a high profile global corporate icon of the Covid-19 crisis, look no further than Japan’s SoftBank Group, the world’s largest tech investor, which has seen its shares plummet 54% since mid-February.
The tech giant’s slide has accelerated since the ratings agency S&P cut its outlook to negative last week. On March 23, Softbank fired a bazooka announcing the sale of US$41 billion ($59.7 billion) in assets to shore up its balance sheet as it moved to cut debts, buy back more of its own shares and bonds and help prop up some of the distressed ventures in its stable.
