SoftBank Investment (Part 1): Masayoshi Son's "Golden Egg" Yields Big Profits

SoftBank Group launched its $100 trillion-yen Vision Fund in 2017. Fund No. 2 was established in 2019. As of the end of September, the total investment by the two funds has grown to $163.2 billion (about 25.3 trillion yen), with pre-tax investment gains reaching approximately 3.7 trillion yen……

The funds under Japan’s SoftBank Group (SBG), particularly the SoftBank Vision Fund (SVF), have performed strongly. Although it once ran into trouble, the “golden egg” that Chairman and President Masayoshi Son has nurtured—its listing—drove SoftBank Group to record a new profit high from April to September 2025. The Vision Fund’s strong performance has strengthened SoftBank Group’s financial capacity, supporting large-scale investments in artificial intelligence (AI) areas such as the U.S. OpenAI.

“Comrade-style combination”

At a financial results briefing in November, SoftBank Group’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Yoshimitsu Goto said, “For the first time in a while, we’ve arrived at an autumn that lets us breathe easier,” revealing what he felt inside. This is because after several years of setbacks, including the bankruptcy of U.S. investment target WeWork, the investment returns of the Vision Fund recovered to nearly 3 trillion yen in the July–September consolidated financial statements.

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The Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha and the Financial Times merged in November 2015 to become the same media group. The alliance between two newspaper companies—Japan’s and the UK’s—which were both founded in the 19th century—is moving forward with “high-quality, the most powerful economic journalism” as its banner, and is promoting wide-ranging collaboration such as joint special features. This time, as part of that effort, the Chinese websites of the two newspapers have enabled article exchanges.