SoftBank Group Corp. (ソフトバンクグループ株式会社 Sofutobanku Gurūpu Kabushiki-gaisha?)[5] is a Japanese multinational telecommunications and Internet corporation established on September 3, 1981, and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It has operations in broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-commerce, Internet, technology services, finance, media and marketing, semiconductor design, and other businesses.[6] The company is headed by founder Masayoshi Son.
SoftBank was ranked in the Forbes Global 2000 list as the 62nd largest public company in the world,[7] and the third largest public company in Japan after Toyota and Mitsubishi
Between 2009 and 2014, SoftBank's market capitalization increased by 557%, the fourth largest relative increase in the world over that period
When Billionaires Meet: $50 Billion Pledge From SoftBank to Trump
After meeting Donald Trump, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son puts sheds new light on existing investment plans
SAN FRANCISCO — Telecommunications giant SoftBank Group plans to invest $50 billion into the U.S. economy, and add 50,000 jobs, president-elect Donald Trump announced in New York Tuesday.
Trump made the announcement over Twitter after meeting with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son for 45 minutes at Trump Tower. The Japanese company has a majority stake in Sprint, whose plans to merge with rival T-Mobile were thwarted by the Obama Administration.
Son’s summit with Trump is very likely to rekindle the possibility of a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile.
Mr. Son told reporters he planned to “invest into the new startup companies in the United States.” It would be difficult to create 50,000 jobs entirely by investing in startups, which generally employ few workers. Sprint employs about 30,000 people and has cut jobs to combat losses.
In an interview, Mr. Son said the money will be coming from a $100 billion investment fund that he began setting up earlier this year with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund and other potential partners.
Mr. Son’s plan to pour $50 billion is massive compared with the total amount of capital in venture circles. Venture-capital firms had $163 billion available to invest in new deals as of June 2016, according to research firm Preqin.
In addition to startups, Mr. Son also has his sights on acquisitions as large as $30 billion, a person familiar with his thinking said.
In addition to Kansas-based Sprint, which SoftBank acquired in 2013 for $22 billion, the company also led a $1 billion investment round last year in San Francisco-based online lender Social Finance Inc.
When he acquired Sprint, Mr. Son’s initial plan was to merge the carrier with German-owned T-Mobile US Inc. to take on market leaders AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., but he abandoned the effort after regulators signaled they would reject the plan. Some investors and analysts have said he could make another attempt after Mr. Trump’s election.
and when a new chairman is appointed to the Federal Communications Commission.
Mr. Son planned to tell Mr. Trump about what happened with T-Mobile, and how he had wanted to invest in the U.S. but the regulatory climate was too harsh so he invested outside the U.S. instead, the person familiar with the matter said.