SoftBank Group disclosed today that it has sold its remaining stake in online car giant Uber. The move comes as SoftBank looks to raise cash amid mounting losses at its investment arm. Earlier today, SoftBank reported a net loss of 3.16 trillion yen ($23.4 billion) for the first quarter of fiscal 2022, the second consecutive quarter with the largest quarterly loss on record, ending June 30.
The earnings report showed that SoftBank’s two Vision Funds had investment losses totaling 2.92 trillion yen. Among them, the Vision Fund (Phase I) lost 2.33 trillion yen, compared with a record loss of 2.2 trillion yen already in the previous quarter.
SoftBank then said it sold its entire stake in Uber between April and July of this year at an average price of $41.47 per share. SoftBank also said that the shares cost an average of $34.50 per share, so the sale was profitable.
But SoftBank did not disclose how much profit the sale of Uber shares brought, nor did it say exactly how many shares were sold. But SoftBank said the shares of companies sold between April and July – including Uber, online real estate company Opendoor, healthcare company Guardant and Shell Housing – generated a total gain of $5.6 billion.
SoftBank invested in Uber in 2018 and again in 2019, becoming its largest shareholder at one point. There were reports that SoftBank sold about 1/3 of its stake in Uber last year. Today, the remaining about 2/3 has been sold off as well.
Shares of some of SoftBank’s publicly traded companies, such as South Korean e-commerce company Coupang, Uber and U.S. food delivery operator DoorDash, have plunged amid a global stock market sell-off, but some of those stocks have rallied in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, the share prices of some privately held portfolio companies, too, fell in the first fiscal quarter. The earnings report showed that the cumulative investment return of Vision Fund 2, which has a higher percentage of unlisted portfolio companies than the first fund, fell into negative territory by the end of June.
