Alibaba, SoftBank’s largest asset, also saw its value drop by a third to $52 billion during the second quarter.
„We are in a snowstorm again. It’s a blizzard,“ SoftBank CEO and chairman Masayoshi Son said on Monday afternoon, when explaining how his company’s Vision Fund lost around ¥1 trillion in value during the second quarter. SoftBank’s CEO pointed to China’s crackdown on tech companies as the main reason for the dip, with its investments in China having been hamstrung by fines and bans over the past six months. While not one of the company’s Vision Fund investments, the company’s largest asset Alibaba saw its valuation fall by around a third in the second quarter to $52 billion. Earlier this year, Alibaba was fined $2.7 billion for breaching China’s antitrust regulations. Meanwhile, the Vision-Fund backed Didi, acquired for $12 billion, is now only valued at $7.5 billion due to facing similar headwinds in China. In the past six months, the company has lost almost $3 billion in value, with most of that drop occurring after Didi was barred from app stores in the country in July after the Chinese government called for the company to undergo a cybersecurity review.
