Softbank

Softbank, a company we hear alot but never known what they really do
                                                       

Tokyo has the headquarters of Japanese massive conglomerate,Softbank. It started as software distributor and grew into telecom giant.
Now spans into many industries pouring billions of dollars into many giants like Alibaba,Uber,WeWork.Yet this is company less known.

Let get deep into this giant:
Softbank is ranked 38 on Forbes list of world's biggest public companies which stands higher than general motors and IBM and far ahead of Amazon,coca-cola and Walt -Disney.
Their business deals vary from telecommunication services,finances,E-commerce,technology services,semiconductor design,media and marketting,a baseball team and even a robot-Pepper,a humanoid robot that understands human emotions and language

So who is behind it all?
    Founder and CEO,Masayoshi Son
                                      

He is known for his fierce business strategies and they are seeming to be pay off
           A quote from Masayoshi Son's Biography;
                         "I don't have such time to waste.one can think as much as he likes.
                           However,I need to act and follow through my ambition.
                           Because we only live once,i Want to do something that will be            
                           remembered in history. If  I do the same as others do,I will never be  able to make history"                                                  
He studied computer science and economics.While he was still a student in 1976,Son started his first business-through his invention,A machine that could translate languages"a electric dictionary",first one ever made.

Later this was acquired by Sharp for 1.7 million dollars and he was just 19 years old.He made another $1.5 million by importing used video games machines.
He has set his fixed criteria for buisness setup,those include:
                                             1)the buisness must be loved for 50 years
                                            2)Be unique
                                           3)he must become market leader in next 10 years.
Through all these criteria,he choose a buisness close to his expertise and Softbank was formed in year 1981.Later with the companies sucess he grown to be called 'Bill Gates of Japan' and Son is now the richest man in Japan.
The companies main belief lies in the purchasing US based tech companies and localizing them.
when DOT-COM bubble popped up in the millenium,The Son's net worth grew higher than Bill Gates and all thus imploded in just one day to $8 billion with the burst of DOT.COM bubble.
After meeting Donald Trumph in 2016 ,it was announced thath Son would invest $20 billion dollars in US tech industries and immediately after this announcement Softbank share surged  more than 6%  making Son instantly $2 billion richer.


Though the company is located in Japan,it's success has less to do with Japan more with china
to be precise on, it's most successful investment was Alibaba which helped convert $30 million investment into $150 billion in just 14 years.Thats almost 3,00,000% gain.

With such returns like that,it's no wonder that Softbank has become investing powerhouse.
Softbank has invested in more than half of the top 10 biggest investments in VC-backed startups.That included rail-hailing gaints DIDI Chuixing,ola, Grab,Flipkart-an Indian e-commerce giant.

Those companies get investment from Softbank whether they like or not,It is said that when DIDI Chuixing and Uber denied investment from Softbank,Son threatened them with investing in their rivals instead Needless these companies took the investment
Softbank investment doesn't stop here,They purchased ARM holding for whooping $31 billion maiking the biggest purchase of the European tech compnay -ever

Google owner Alphabet also sold it's robotics firm Boston dynamics to Softbank in 2017 for an undisclosed amount.

Much of  softbanks recent investment are a part of "Vision fund"

-It's the largest technology investment  fund in history.While the $100 billions is primarly backed by softbank and the remaining is backed other giants including Apple.
It recently announced $200 billion power project in Saudi arabia which would be the world's biggest solar power project.The company wants to invest in 100 tech companies around the world,once it is done investing it's money creating the biggest ecosystem of tech companies in the world.
 Son has setup a longterm vision of 300 years for the company this would boost the companies growth for next coming years. 
                                                                                                   -avansat