SoftBank Group Corp.

What does SoftBank Group own?
SoftBank Group's primary assets include a majority stake in Arm Holdings (approximately 90%), SoftBank Corp. (Japanese mobile telecommunications), and portfolio investments through the SoftBank Vision Funds in companies including ByteDance, Coupang, and others. The company previously held major stakes in Alibaba, Uber, DoorDash, and Sprint, most of which have been sold or exited.

Is SoftBank Group publicly traded?
Yes. SoftBank Group Corp. trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under ticker symbol 9984. The company is one of Japan's largest companies by market capitalization and is a component of the Nikkei 225 index.

Who founded SoftBank?
SoftBank was founded by Masayoshi Son in 1981 in Fukuoka, Japan, initially as a software distribution and publishing company. Son, a Japanese-Korean entrepreneur who studied in the United States at UC Berkeley, has led the company as Chairman and CEO since its founding.

Where is SoftBank headquartered?
SoftBank Group Corp. is headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The company maintains offices in major financial centers globally for its investment activities.

How many brands does SoftBank own?
SoftBank Group does not operate a traditional consumer brand portfolio. It holds investment stakes in technology companies that operate their own brands independently. Its most significant owned asset is Arm Holdings, which licenses semiconductor designs under the Arm brand. SoftBank Corp., the Japanese telecommunications subsidiary, operates under the SoftBank and Y!mobile brand names.

Who owns SoftBank Group?
SoftBank Group is a publicly traded company. Masayoshi Son holds a significant direct equity stake and controls the company through his role as Chairman and CEO. No single outside investor holds a majority stake, though Son's combined direct and indirect holdings give him effective control.

Masayoshi Son founded SoftBank in 1981 in Fukuoka, Japan, as a software distributor. The company grew rapidly during the 1980s and 1990s by distributing packaged software to Japanese retailers and publishing technology magazines. SoftBank went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1994.

Son's investment acumen was demonstrated most dramatically in 2000 when he invested approximately $20 million in a small Chinese internet company called Alibaba, founded by Jack Ma. That investment, made after a six-minute meeting, eventually returned more than $60 billion as Alibaba grew into one of the world's most valuable companies. It remains one of the most profitable venture investments in history.

During the late 1990s dotcom boom, SoftBank made aggressive investments in internet companies globally, accumulating positions valued at nearly $200 billion at peak market valuations in 2000. The subsequent dotcom crash wiped out approximately $70 billion in portfolio value, one of the largest individual wealth destructions in business history at the time. Son rebuilt the company through the Alibaba stake and telecommunications acquisitions.

SoftBank acquired Vodafone Japan in 2006 for approximately $15.5 billion, creating SoftBank Corp., which became Japan's third-largest mobile carrier. In 2013, SoftBank acquired a controlling stake in Sprint Corporation, the US telecommunications carrier, for approximately $21.6 billion. Sprint was later merged with T-Mobile US in 2020, with SoftBank exiting most of its position.

The launch of SoftBank Vision Fund 1 in 2017 marked the beginning of SoftBank's most ambitious investment phase. The fund invested in companies including Uber, WeWork, DoorDash, ByteDance, Grab, Coupang, OYO Hotels, and hundreds of others. Portfolio performance was mixed: Uber, DoorDash, Coupang, and ByteDance generated substantial returns, while WeWork, Greensill Capital, and Katerra resulted in near-total write-offs.

SoftBank's attempted sale of Arm Holdings to Nvidia for approximately $40 billion was abandoned in February 2022 after US, UK, and European competition regulators indicated they would block the transaction. Arm was instead listed on NASDAQ in September 2023, raising approximately $4.9 billion at a valuation of approximately $60 billion. By early 2026, Arm's market capitalization had grown substantially on AI-driven semiconductor demand.

SoftBank Group has published sustainability commitments through its annual sustainability reports, including goals related to renewable energy usage at SoftBank Corp.'s network infrastructure. The company's investment activities have generated controversy in several portfolio companies, most notably WeWork's governance failures and the social implications of companies including Uber that have disrupted labor markets.

SoftBank has faced public scrutiny primarily related to its Vision Fund investment practices and specific portfolio company failures.

The WeWork situation generated significant media attention from 2019 onward as the company's governance failures, founder misconduct, and unsustainable business model became public. SoftBank invested approximately $10.65 billion in WeWork and provided rescue financing that eventually wiped out its equity position when WeWork filed for bankruptcy in November 2023.

Son's Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund partnership for Vision Fund 1 drew criticism following the October 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, with calls for SoftBank to return the PIF's capital. SoftBank maintained the partnership and did not return capital.