Technology investor SoftBank Group reported on Wednesday that its net profit more than tripled to 1.83 trillion yen ($11.60 billion) in the January-March quarter, as it booked gains on the value of its investment in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was SoftBank’s fifth consecutive quarterly profit, with the Vision Fund investing arm booking an OpenAI-driven gain of 3.1 trillion yen in the quarter, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Founder and CEO Masayoshi Son is one of OpenAI’s most enthusiastic backers, with the group saying its cumulative gains on the investment total $45 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SoftBank has sold off stakes in holdings such as T-Mobile and Nvidia, issued bonds and taken out loans, backed by its holdings in chip designer Arm and its domestic telecommunications arm SoftBank Corp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SoftBank arranged \u2060a bridge loan agreement totaling $40 billion in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Wednesday, it said $20 billion was drawn down in April, primarily for the OpenAI investment, and $2.5 billion had already been repaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SoftBank had previously said it had agreed to invest a further $30 billion in OpenAI over the course of 2026, which would bring its cumulative investment to $64.6 billion for a 13% stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beyond OpenAI, the group booked a 278.6 billion yen gain on its investment in chipmaker Intel, which is led by former SoftBank board member Lip-Bu Tan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SoftBank has \u2060also sought to build a portfolio of robotics firms, looking to gain a foothold in an industry that is in its infancy but is seen by analysts and investors as having potential to drive profits into the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It agreed to acquire the robotics business of Swiss engineering group ABB in a $5.4 \u2060billion deal last year, and created a new subsidiary within the group to hold its robotics-related stakes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Technology investor SoftBank Group reported on Wednesday that its net profit more than tripled to 1.83 trillion yen ($11.60 billion) in the January-March quarter, as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,16,36],"tags":[22,78,849,37],"class_list":["post-4106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-finance","category-technology","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-softbank","tag-technology"],"yoast_head":"\n