Japan's SoftBank Books Hefty Vision Fund Loss But Returns To Quarterly Profit

Japan's SoftBank Group Corp on Friday unveiled a loss at its sprawling Vision Fund investment arm for the third straight quarter, even as the tech company posted a net profit from selling some of its stake in China's Alibaba.

Vision Fund upended the world of venture capital with splashy bets on startups, but it has been hammered in recent quarters by a global tech rout, prompting SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son to sharply scale back fresh investments.

Investment losses at flagship unit Vision Fund were 1.38 trillion yen ($9.75 billion) in the three months to September 30 as the value of its portfolio continued to slide.

At SoftBank itself, net profit came to 3.03 trillion yen in the July-September second quarter. In the first quarter the group had posted a 3.16 trillion yen loss.

Days after unveiling the massive first-quarter loss, SoftBank said it would reduce its Alibaba Group Holdings stake to around 15% from around 24% by settling prepaid forward contracts and book an estimated gain of 4.6 trillion yen in the second quarter.

In the latest quarter the value of some of SoftBank's listed investments fell, including its stakes in U.S. real estate broker Compass and Indonesia's biggest tech firm, GoTo, while South Korean e-commerce firm Coupang was among the gainers.

($1 = 141.5400 yen)