SoftBank boss confident big bets can pay off again despite several ‘golden eggs’ dying

SoftBank boss confident big bets can pay off again despite several ‘golden eggs’ dying

For a company often hailed for its forward thinking and for the big bets it places on future business trends, Softbank seems at times to be terribly accident-prone.

The much-heralded tech investor, best known in Britain for its takeover of the chip designer ARM Holdings shortly after the Brexit vote, blundered two years ago with a huge bet on the shared office provider WeWork.

It reported a loss of £5bn in the three months to the end of September 2019 after writing down the value of its investment in the company by $3.4bn, which dragged into a loss the Vision Fund, the giant Saudi-backed investment vehicle through which it has backed businesses such as Uber.