SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund will outline plans for a blank-check company in the next two weeks, seeking to capitalize on the investor frenzy surrounding the unusual fundraising vehicle. SoftBank is expected to seek outside funds and may contribute some of its own capital, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the details are private. SoftBank’s experiments beyond its traditional expertise have spooked some investors, including earlier this year when the company traded billions in stock options. Some accused the company of pumping up tech valuations with its purchases, but Misra dismissed that idea in the interview Monday.
“Are we buying a few billion of other stocks to diversify away from the Alibaba we sold in the past six months?” Misra asked. “We’re still sitting on a lot of cash. It’s a liquidity-management strategy, it’s a diversification strategy.” “Nobody buying $10 billion of Nasdaq over a few weeks is going to move the Nasdaq. We’re not even a dolphin; forget being a whale.”
The Vision Fund is known mainly for its investments in startups. With about $100 billion from Saudi Arabia and other investors, SoftBank rained cash on nascent companies in recent years, and the results were sometimes problematic. Uber Technologies Inc. and WeWork spent money freely without apparent consideration for profits.