SoftBank Group

Founder Masayoshi Son studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he immersed himself in various inventions and businesses; while studying in the U.S., he came across a picture of a microchip in a science magazine that convinced him the age of personal computers was coming, and he then decided to return to Japan to start a business of his own.⁠[1][1]

The company was founded on September 3, 1981, as Nihon SoftBank, the very first business to distribute PC software throughout Japan. “SoftBank” means “a bank of software,” and the word “bank” was chosen in the hope of becoming a key source of infrastructure for the information society.⁠[2][1][3]

To expand the base of PC users in Japan, Nihon SoftBank launched the monthly magazines Oh! PC and Oh! MZ in May 1982, which featured computers and software by manufacturer.⁠[1][1]

In July 1990 the company changed its name to SoftBank Corp. with the aim of becoming a global company; at the time it pursued a “Time Machine Management” strategy, introducing a series of new businesses from the U.S. to Japan.⁠[1][1]

In March 1994 the company established SoftBank Holdings Inc. in the U.S. to gather information on internet companies and make strategic investments; in July of that year it registered with the Japan Securities Dealers Association and offered shares publicly on the over-the-counter market, using the JPY 20 billion raised to embark on major acquisitions in the U.S.⁠[1][1]

From 1994 to 1996, through SoftBank Holdings, it acquired the events division of Ziff Communications, took a stake in the exhibition division of The Interface Group, which operated the COMDEX computer show, and acquired Ziff-Davis Publishing, the publisher of PC WEEK; Masayoshi Son described these transactions as a way to “get a map and a compass” for a voyage into the center of information technology, and through Ziff-Davis the company discovered the newly established Yahoo!.⁠[1][1][1]

After taking a stake in Yahoo! in November 1995, the company established Yahoo Japan Corporation (now LY Corporation) jointly with Yahoo! Inc. of the U.S. in January 1996, designated 1996 the “First Year of the Internet,” and launched a succession of internet businesses.⁠[1][1]

In January 1998 the company listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and the following year it demerged its divisions into separate companies to become a pure holding company.⁠[1][1]

In 2000 the company invested in Alibaba (Alibaba.com Corporation, now Alibaba Group), and the two have since built a long-term relationship through business partnerships, joint ventures and joint investments; Masayoshi Son became a director of Alibaba in October 2005.⁠[1][1][4]

In September 2001 its subsidiary BB Technologies launched Yahoo! BB, an ADSL-based broadband service offering about twice the speed of competitors at about half the price.⁠[1][1][1]

On January 23, 2004, wholly owned subsidiary SOFTBANK BB announced that data on 242 customers had been leaked and filed a complaint with police; in late February, suspects in an attempted extortion of the company using Yahoo! BB customer data were arrested. After comparing materials provided by police, the company confirmed on February 27 that personal information on 4,517,039 people had been leaked, including names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and application dates, but no credit card numbers, bank account numbers or passwords.⁠[5][5][6][6][6]

The company set up an investigation committee reporting directly to President Masayoshi Son and chaired by Chief Operating Officer Ken Miyauchi to work with police on the leakage route, which had not been identified as of February 27; in the meantime it cut the number of people with access to customer data from 135 to 58 and strengthened access logging and external anti-intrusion measures.⁠[6][6][6][6]

In July 2004 the company acquired 100% of JAPAN TELECOM (now SoftBank Corp.), entering the fixed-line telecommunications business. In December of that year it introduced a double-line logo based on the banner of the Kaientai, led by Ryoma Sakamoto, and later changed its brand color to silver.⁠[1][1][1]

In January 2005 the company acquired the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks professional baseball team, renamed the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, significantly raising its profile as the team’s owner.⁠[1][1]

Having initially intended to build a mobile business from scratch, the company instead acquired control of Vodafone K.K. through a tender offer and other means, entering mobile communications in April 2006, with Masayoshi Son becoming its chairman, president and CEO; in October of that year Vodafone K.K. was renamed SoftBank Mobile Corp.⁠[1][4][1]

As the exclusive provider of the iPhone 3G in Japan, SoftBank Mobile released the device on July 11, 2008, with people queuing in front of SoftBank shops nationwide; it also expanded its customer base with the low-cost White Plan.⁠[1][1]

In June 2010, to mark its 30th anniversary, the company announced its Next 30-Year Vision, setting the goal of becoming “the corporate group needed most by people around the world”; Masayoshi Son later said that the “brain computer” able to learn independently and connect with robots envisioned at the time is what is now called artificial superintelligence.⁠[1][1][7]

On July 10, 2013, SoftBank completed its merger transaction with U.S. carrier Sprint Nextel, investing about $21.6 billion (about JPY 1.8 trillion), acquiring about 72% of the shares for $7.65 per share in cash and holding about 78% of the new Sprint through a U.S. holding company, with Masayoshi Son becoming Sprint’s chairman; the deal was partly funded by bridge loans totaling JPY 1,284.9 billion.⁠[8][8][8][8][8]

In June 2014 SoftBank Mobile and ALDEBARAN Robotics announced Pepper, a personal robot that can read emotions; in September of that year Alibaba Group listed on the New York Stock Exchange.⁠[1][1][1]

In July 2015 SoftBank Corp. changed its name to SoftBank Group Corp. to clarify its role as a pure holding company driving global development, while the former SoftBank Mobile was renamed SoftBank Corp.⁠[1][1]

On September 5, 2016 (GMT), SoftBank Group completed its cash acquisition of semiconductor technology company ARM Holdings for about £24.0 billion (about $31.0 billion), after which ARM was delisted from the London Stock Exchange; the company said the move anticipated the Internet of Things era in which all things are connected, and Masayoshi Son became chairman of ARM.⁠[9][9][9][1][1][4]

On October 14, 2016, SoftBank Group announced the SoftBank Vision Fund, to be managed in the United Kingdom and invest in the technology sector globally, with SoftBank expecting to invest at least $25 billion over five years; it signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), under which PIF would consider becoming the lead investment partner with up to $45 billion, and the fund’s overall size could reach $100 billion. Masayoshi Son said the Vision Fund would become the biggest investor in the technology sector over the next decade.⁠[10][10][10][10][10]

On May 20, 2017, the SoftBank Vision Fund announced its first major close with more than $93 billion of committed capital against a $100 billion target; besides SoftBank and PIF, the limited partners included the UAE’s Mubadala, Apple, Foxconn, Qualcomm and Sharp. SoftBank committed up to $28 billion, about $8.2 billion of it through an in-kind contribution of about 24.99% of ARM’s shares, and the fund was advised by SB Investment Advisers, led by Rajeev Misra.⁠[11][11][11][11][11][11]

Its capital structure consisted of $28 billion in cash and assets from SoftBank, $45 billion from PIF, $15 billion from MubadalaMubadala Investment CompanyMubadala Investment Company (Mubadala) is a sovereign investor wholly owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi. It was formed in 2017 by the merger of the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), founded in 1984, and Mubadala Development Company, founded in 2002, and absorbed the Abu Dhabi Investment Council the following year; as of the end of 2025 it managed about AED 1.4 trillion (US$385 billion) in assets, with business in more than 80 countries.Open the full entry and $1 billion each from Apple, Foxconn, Qualcomm and Sharp; by December 2018 the fund had raised $98.6 billion from 14 investors.⁠[12][12]

In December 2018 subsidiary SoftBank Corp., which runs the Japanese telecommunications business, listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, clarifying its role and value separately from SoftBank Group, which pursues investments globally.⁠[1][1]

On July 26, 2019, SoftBank Group announced plans for SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with expected capital of about $108 billion based on memoranda of understanding with institutions including Apple, Foxconn, Microsoft and several Japanese banks, of which SoftBank intended to invest $38 billion; finalization of the fund was subject to definitive documents. The fund launched that October.⁠[13][13][13][13][13][1]

Saying that WeWorkWeWorkWeWork is a flexible workspace company founded in New York in 2010 by Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey. It provides private offices, coworking space, meeting rooms and enterprise workplace services. After withdrawing its IPO plan in 2019, it went public through a BowX merger in 2021, entered Chapter 11 in 2023 and emerged from restructuring in June 2024, continuing as a private company.Open the full entry was going through growth challenges, SoftBank Group announced on October 23, 2019, that it would provide WeWork with $5 billion in new financing, launch a tender offer of up to $3 billion for existing shareholders and accelerate an existing $1.5 billion commitment, after which it would hold about 80% of the economic interest without control; SoftBank Chief Operating Officer Marcelo Claure became WeWork’s executive chairman, and founder Adam NeumannAdam NeumannAdam Neumann, born in Israel in 1979, is an entrepreneur who co-founded WeWork and served as its CEO from 2010 to 2019. He subsequently founded residential real estate company Flow and was a co-founder of Flowcarbon. He completed a BBA in Entrepreneurship at Baruch College in 2017. In a 2026 interview on The Diary Of A CEO, he reflected on SoftBank’s investment, expansion and his leadership.Open the full entry became a board observer.⁠[14][14][14][14][14][14]

On March 23, 2020, SoftBank Group’s board approved the sale or monetization of up to JPY 4.5 trillion ($41 billion) of assets over four quarters and authorized repurchases of up to JPY 2 trillion of its stock, with the balance used to reduce debt and increase cash. The company said its shares traded at a 73% discount to intrinsic value and that the two buybacks would retire 45% of its stock.⁠[15][15][15][15][15]

In April 2020, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 terminated and withdrew its $3 billion tender offer for WeWork shares, asserting that various conditions had not been met. On April 7 a special committee of WeWork’s board, acting in the company’s name, sued SoftBank Group and the Vision Fund in the Delaware Court of Chancery, and Neumann filed a separate suit on May 4. The parties settled on February 25, 2021; under the agreement Vision Fund 2 completed a new tender offer for $921.6 million of shares at $23.23 per share, and the litigation was dismissed on April 15, 2021.⁠[16][16][16][16][16][16][16]

The same month, the merger of Sprint and T-Mobile was completed, and Sprint ceased to be a SoftBank subsidiary.⁠[1]

On September 14, 2020, Nvidia and SoftBank Group signed a definitive agreement under which Nvidia would acquire Arm from SoftBank Group and the SoftBank Vision Fund in a transaction valued at $40 billion, consisting of $21.5 billion in Nvidia stock and $12 billion in cash (including $2 billion at signing), plus an earn-out of up to $5 billion; SoftBank expected to hold under 10% of Nvidia after the deal.⁠[17][17][17][17]

That year SoftBank set up SB Northstar to invest the company’s excess cash in listed stocks, with Masayoshi Son personally holding a 33% interest.⁠[18]

In January 2021, to transform work styles and strengthen business continuity, the company moved its headquarters to the Tokyo Portcity Takeshiba Office Tower in the Takeshiba area of Minato-ku, Tokyo.⁠[1]

On February 8, 2022, Nvidia and SoftBank Group announced that they had terminated the Arm acquisition agreement because significant regulatory challenges prevented the deal from closing; SoftBank kept the $1.25 billion prepaid by Nvidia, to be recorded as profit in the fourth quarter, Nvidia retained its 20-year Arm license, and SoftBank announced it would prepare to take Arm public within the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023.⁠[19][19][19]

In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022, the Vision Fund swung from a JPY 4.03 trillion profit in the prior year to a JPY 2.64 trillion loss amid a tech selloff, and the group posted an annual net loss of JPY 1.71 trillion, as the valuations of portfolio companies such as Coupang, Uber, DoorDash and Didi fell sharply. Masayoshi Son said the company would play defense and that new investment could fall to half or even a quarter of the previous year’s level; SB Northstar lost JPY 670 billion that year, of which Son personally bore JPY 315 billion.⁠[18][18][20][18][18]

Scandals and missteps at WeWork, Wirecard and Greensill Capital also dented Son’s reputation as an investor; he said SoftBank would reduce its investments in China.⁠[18][20]

On August 8, 2022, SoftBank Group reported a $23 billion loss for April to June, the largest quarterly loss in its history. At a press conference Masayoshi Son said that when the company was making big profits he had become “somewhat delirious” and was now “quite embarrassed and remorseful,” and announced cost cuts “with no sacred cows” and significant staff cuts at the Vision Fund; during the quarter it sold $10.5 billion of Alibaba shares to raise cash.⁠[21][21][21][21][21]

Arm’s initial public offering of 95.5 million American depositary shares at $51 each, all sold by an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank Group, began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on September 14, 2023, under the symbol ARM; SoftBank’s stake fell to 90.6%, and Arm remained its subsidiary.⁠[22][22][22][22][22]

On November 6, 2023, WeWork filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey. On November 9 SoftBank Group reported a net loss of JPY 931 billion ($6.2 billion) for July to September, its fourth consecutive quarterly loss, as gains from the Arm IPO failed to offset the weak yen and writedowns of private investments.⁠[23][23][24][24]

In September 2024 SoftBank Vision Fund 2 made its first investment in OpenAI; in June of that year SoftBank and Tempus AI formed the joint venture SB TEMPUS to promote personalized healthcare in Japan using medical data and AI.⁠[1][1]

In January 2025 SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle and MGXMGXMGX is an Abu Dhabi artificial intelligence and advanced technology investment company, announced in March 2024 by Abu Dhabi’s Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council with Mubadala and G42 as foundational partners and chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan. It has invested in companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Databricks, and Binance, and co-founded the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP) with BlackRock, Microsoft, and others.Open the full entry, as initial equity funders, announced the Stargate Project, which planned to invest $500 billion over four years building AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States, beginning with $100 billion immediately; SoftBank has financial responsibility and OpenAI operational responsibility, Masayoshi Son is chairman, and construction began in Texas.⁠[25][25][25][25]

On March 20, 2025, SoftBank Group announced an all-cash acquisition of Ampere Computing, which designs high-performance AI compute chips based on the Arm compute platform, for $6.5 billion; the deal closed on November 25, 2025 (U.S. time), making Ampere a wholly owned subsidiary.⁠[26][27][27][27]

On March 31 SoftBank committed to invest up to $40 billion in OpenAI: it invested $7.5 billion through Vision Fund 2 at the first closing in April and a further $22.5 billion at the second closing on December 26, and together with $11 billion from other co-investors the total of $41 billion was fully funded, giving SoftBank about 11% of OpenAI.⁠[28][28][28][28][28]

In October 2025 SoftBank Group sold all 32.1 million Nvidia shares it held for $5.83 billion and sold part of its T-Mobile stake for $9.17 billion; the transactions were disclosed with its November 11 earnings, and the proceeds went toward funding its OpenAI investment and other commitments. Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto described the sales as part of an “asset monetization” strategy. The Vision Fund had previously built a stake of about $4 billion in Nvidia in 2017 and sold it entirely in January 2019.⁠[29][29][29][30]

On October 8, 2025, SoftBank Group signed an agreement with ABB to acquire its carved-out robotics business for $5.375 billion, subject to regulatory approvals including in the European Union, China and the United States, with closing expected in mid-to-late 2026; the company said it was part of its investment in four areas: AI chips, AI robots, AI data centers and energy.⁠[31][31][31][31][31]

On February 27, 2026 (U.S. time), SoftBank Group agreed with OpenAI Group PBC to invest $30 billion through Vision Fund 2 in three $10 billion tranches (April 1, July 1 and October 1, 2026) at a pre-money valuation of $730 billion; it had already invested a cumulative $34.6 billion since September 2024. The company reaffirmed its financial policy of keeping its loan-to-value ratio (LTV) below 25% under normal conditions, with an upper threshold of 35% in emergencies.⁠[32][32][32][32]

American depositary shares of subsidiary PayPay began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on March 12, 2026 (U.S. time), under the symbol PAYP at an offering price of $16 per share, and PayPay remains a SoftBank subsidiary.⁠[33][33][33]

The same month, the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Commerce announced a public-private partnership with SoftBank Group, Energy Global and AEP Ohio to develop 10 GW of power generation and 10 GW of AI data center capacity at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Ohio; on March 21, 21 Japanese and U.S. companies and financial institutions formed the Portsmouth Consortium to take part in the project, with SoftBank Group as its secretariat.⁠[1][34][34]

From April 21, 2026, Rene Haas, CEO of Arm and a SoftBank Group board member, also became CEO of SoftBank Group International, coordinating the platform’s international subsidiaries in semiconductors and AI while continuing to lead Arm.⁠[35][35][35]

On May 30, 2026, at France’s Choose France summit, SoftBank Group committed to develop and operate 5 GW of AI data center capacity in France with an investment of up to €75 billion; the first phase of €45 billion is planned to deliver 3.1 GW of capacity in the Hauts-de-France region at Dunkirk, Bosquel and Bouchain by 2031, the group’s largest AI infrastructure investment in Europe.⁠[36][36][36][36]

On September 24, 2026, SoftBank Group set terms for U.S. dollar and euro senior notes totaling about $11.1 billion equivalent, with the dollar notes bearing interest of 8.625% to 9.75% and rated BB+, to fund the $10 billion third tranche of its OpenAI investment.⁠[37][37][37][37]

On September 30, 2026 (U.S. time), SoftBank Group completed its acquisition of DigitalBridge Group, an alternative asset manager focused on digital infrastructure, for about $3.1 billion, making it a controlled subsidiary that continues to operate as a separately managed platform led by Marc Ganzi.⁠[38][38]

On October 1, 2026 (Japan time), SoftBank Group completed the third $10 billion tranche of its investment in OpenAI through Vision Fund 2, completing the $30 billion follow-on investment and bringing its cumulative investment in OpenAI to $64.6 billion, for an ownership interest of about 13%; the $40 billion bridge facility arranged for the purpose was fully repaid with no undrawn commitments remaining.⁠[39][39][39]

On October 9, 2026, the Financial Times, citing people familiar with the matter, said Masayoshi Son was seeking to raise up to $100 billion from Gulf investors for a new wave of AI investments and had held discussions in recent weeks with senior figures, including in the United Arab Emirates, with the proceeds intended for a fund that would acquire companies and improve their operations using AI; ReutersReutersReuters is an international news agency founded in London in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter and is now the news business of Thomson Reuters. It provides text, photo, video, and graphics coverage to media and institutional clients and distributes it through channels such as Reuters Connect.Open the full entry, relaying the report, could not immediately verify it, and SoftBank did not respond to a request for comment.⁠[40][40][40][40]

SoftBank Group is a pure holding company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (code 9984). As of March 31, 2026, it had 1,077 subsidiaries and 147 associates, with 276 employees at the parent and 73,677 on a consolidated basis; its business segments include the investment business of holding companies, the SoftBank Vision Funds, a telecommunications segment centered on SoftBank Corp., and an AI computing segment including Arm, Ampere and Graphcore.⁠[2][41][2][2][42][42][42][42][42][42]

As of October 2026, Masayoshi Son is representative director, chairman and CEO, and Yoshimitsu Goto is chief financial officer. The company’s corporate philosophy is “Information Revolution—Happiness for everyone,” and Son has set the goal of becoming the No. 1 platform provider for artificial superintelligence (ASI), focusing on four areas: frontier AI models, semiconductors, AI infrastructure and robots.⁠[43][43][7][7][7]

SoftBank Group: Official website: https://group.softbank/en/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

X: Public account: https://x.com/softbank_group (opens in a new window)⁠[2]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/softbankgroup/ (opens in a new window)⁠[2]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/SoftBankGroup (opens in a new window)⁠[2]