Profit of Japan's SoftBank Group

Japan's SoftBank Group Corp. posted net income of 1.17 trillion yen (about $11 billion) in the third fiscal quarter, thanks to investments in Vision Funds, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The company had investment income of 1.77 billion yen, about 80% of which came from Vision Funds 1 and 2.

According to SoftBank's press release, its net profit for the nine months ended 31 December 2020 rose more than sixfold to 3.055 trillion yen, up from 476.59 billion yen a year earlier.

The company's revenue rose 6.1% to 4.138 trillion yen in the nine months.

SoftBank, which has reoriented itself into an investment company from a telecoms conglomerate, has benefited from rising equity markets in the past year, the WSJ notes. The market capitalisation of companies in which Vision Fund invests, especially Uber Technologies Inc., continued to rise last quarter.

In addition, the securities of food-delivery service DoorDash Inc., of which the fund is an investor, soared immediately after its IPO in December.

Several companies in which Vision Fund has investments are preparing for IPOs this year, fund chief Rajeev Misra said in November. SoftBank is also planning to IPO several special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs).

SoftBank also said on Monday it would receive a total of $4 billion in dividends from its British subsidiary, SoftBank Group Capital Limited.

SoftBank's shares rose 4.5 per cent today before the announcement, reaching their highest level since February 2000.