Victory lap makes SoftBank's Masayoshi Son look tired

Aug 20, 2020 | News On Japan

Aug 20, 2020 (Nikkei) - You know the world is really upside down when Masayoshi Son decides to become a day trader.

What other way to read the about-face by an investor famed for having a three-century time horizon? For years, the SoftBank founder lathered shareholders with talk of investing in the "singularity," that moment when machines outthink humans. How ironic then for the world's most watched venture capitalist to have essentially pivoted toward high-frequency trading machines.

Admittedly, the past 12 months probably feel like a computer simulation Son wants to escape. His $100 billion Vision Fund got bamboozled by WeWork's fantasies of becoming another Apple, not just an old-economy leasing outfit. Then COVID-19 upended Son's giant bets on the sharing economy -- Silicon Valley's Uber, Southeast Asia's Grab, and India's Oyo.

Shareholders rebelled. To stop the bleeding, Son is engaging in what looks like the biggest yard sale in 300 years. Some Alibaba shares here, a bit of T-Mobile stock there, perhaps stakes in chip designer Arm will be next. And suddenly SoftBank is on a winning streak. Asset sales helped Son swing from an $18 billion loss in fiscal 2019 to a $12 billion net profit in the three months ended June.

Oyo's logo in Mumbai, pictured on Mar. 9: COVID-19 upended Son's giant bets on the sharing economy. Â© NurPhoto/Getty Images

Donald Trump gets an assist for this magic trick. By morphing his Federal Reserve into an ATM stuck on "Print All," the U.S. president is driving global stocks to record highs as the pandemic ravages economic growth. It's that surreal rally that is bailing out Son's bets on Uber, workplace software outfit Slack Technologies, online insurer Lemonade and myriad others.

Son had an epiphany: why search for tech unicorn candidates that might let him down when he can ride market uptrends in Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and other monopolies. Son's new toy is a $555 million vehicle -- just for starters, of course -- for investing in America's Big Tech establishment. Tesla, too, where Son has $200 million riding on Elon Musk.

Yet Son is arguably taking the wrong lessons from his $2.8 billion investment gain in the most recent quarter. Rather than realizing how lucky he was to ride Trump's unsustainable COVID-era stock boom, Son appears to think it was his own genius.

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