SoftBank CEO hosts pre-IPO summit in New York
05 March, 2020
SoftBank Group Corp. Chief Executive Masayoshi Son held his first “pre-IPO summit” for the conglomerate’s portfolio companies on Tuesday, introducing them to Wall Street investors who could possibly be backing their currency markets debuts.
The event, that was closed to the media and described by a source in attendance, illustrates how SoftBank is keen to prepare the ground for the original public offerings of several of its holdings, after a few of its portfolio companies performed poorly last year following their listings.
The gathering hosted institutional investors and was chaired by Son and BlackRock Inc. CEO Larry Fink. It included nine SoftBank-backed companies, including data storage company Cohesity, British financial technology firm OakNorth and financing group Greensill Capital, the foundation said.
The event happened at Manhattan’s three-Michelin-star Le Bernardin restaurant.
SoftBank declined to comment.
Son, under great pressure from hedge fund Elliott Management to rein in his mercurial investment style, is spending the week meeting Wall Street contacts in NY.
He is having to defend his track record after many of its expensive bets on startups, including office space-sharing firm WeWork, soured.
SoftBank was looking to raise $108 billion in funds for another Vision Fund. However, Son said last month its launch had been delayed because of investor concerns about the performance of SoftBank’s first $100 billion Vision Fund.
As a result, Son has said SoftBank may spend up to two years investing its own profit a bridge fund, to build a portfolio which will give investors enough confidence to take part in a second Vision Fund.
Two of the first Vision Fund’s most high-profile investments, ride-hailing firm Uber Technologies Inc. and workplace message iphone app Slack Technologies Inc., are trading well below the costs at which they went public this past year.
WeWork saw its potential valuation tumble by tens of billions of dollars before canceling its IPO plans this past year and being bailed out by SoftBank in a near to $10 billion rescue financing deal.
There have also been some IPO successes from the Vision fund, such as for example life science technology company 10x Genomics Inc. and Vir Biotechnology Inc., which specializes in clinical-stage immunology.
Source: the-japan-news.com