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SoftBank generated a net profit of ¥248.6bn ($1.6bn) in its fiscal third quarter, driven by a $4.2bn gain from founder Masayoshi Son’s large and growing investment in OpenAI.
The figure for the three-month period to December compares with a loss of ¥369bn in the same quarter last year, the company said on Thursday. It missed analyst expectations of ¥398bn profit, according to LSEG data.
SoftBank’s earnings were driven by uneven gains from its tech-heavy Vision Funds. The first fund made an investment loss of $4.1bn in the third quarter “primarily due to share price declines of Coupang and DiDi”, but it was outweighed by a gain of $6.6bn in the second fund, which includes the OpenAI stake.
Son has staked his reputation on an increasingly concentrated bet on AI, which he has said will shape “humanity’s future”. The Japanese conglomerate has invested more than $30bn in OpenAI and is in talks to potentially double that amount as part of a fresh funding round that could see the ChatGPT maker’s valuation jump to $750bn.
After OpenAI restructured last year, SoftBank was left with roughly 11 per cent of the company, compared with Microsoft’s close to 27 per cent. As part of its drive to fund its bets on OpenAI, SoftBank sold its entire stake in chipmaker Nvidia for $5.8bn.
SoftBank’s shares have almost doubled over the past 12 months as investors pile into the company as a way to get exposure to OpenAI.
However, the stock price has fallen 29 per cent from a peak in October, reflecting growing fears about valuations in the sector and questions about the company’s ability to finance its vast and growing number of commitments.
Alongside the investment in OpenAI, SoftBank has positions in a portfolio of AI-related companies through the Vision Funds, as well as a majority stake in UK chip designer Arm.
In the US, Son is leading financing for the $500bn Stargate project to scale up US data centres and AI infrastructure with OpenAI, Oracle and Abu Dhabi’s MGX.
SoftBank is expected to announce further deals in the US, including energy projects, backed by funding from the Japanese government as part of its $550bn deal with US President Donald Trump to win lower tariff rates.
