Masayoshi Son’s Wealth Soars To Record High As SoftBank Shares Zoom

Masayoshi Son’s Wealth Soars To Record High As SoftBank Shares Zoom

Shares of Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son's Tokyo-listed SoftBank Group hit an all-time high of 10,420 Japanese yen on Tuesday-more than two decades after reaching a previous high of 10,111 yen in February 2000. Son's latest stock surge lifted his fortune to $48 billion, a tad below retail billionaire Tadashi Yanai's net worth of $48.2 billion.

SoftBank's stock has soared 221% since the firm's founder appeared on the World's Billionaires List in 2020, when his net worth stood at $16.6 billion, marking a clear reversal in fortunes for the tech billionaire, who owns a 27% stake in the company.

Analysts attribute the stock's recent run-up to a slew of factors ranging from asset sales to fund a stock buyback to a string of successful IPOs in the past few months.

From April to September 2020, SoftBank has been on a selling spree that yielded a cumulative 5.6 trillion yen ($53 billion). The sales included shares in American wireless network operator T Mobile, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba as well as telecom affiliate SoftBank Corp. The new funds enabled the firm to buyback 1.3 trillion yen ($12.42 billion) worth of shares as of January 31, 2021.

Additionally, SoftBank signed a $40 billion deal in September 2020 to