SoftBank's $3.9B US Stock Bets Include Amazon, Netflix, Google, Tesla

SoftBank Group Corp SFTBY invested $3.9 billion on large technology companies based in the United States, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

What Happened

The Japanese conglomerate purchased 378,470 Amazon.com, Inc AMZN shares for $1.04 billion before June 30, according to the filing, which have netted it a gain of 15.17% as of Monday's closing.

Among some of the group's other investments, it has gained 6.9% on its purchase of $475 million-worth of Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG Class A shares. 

SoftBank invested $189 million in Adobe Inc ADBE, which has returned a gain of 3.75%, while its Netflix Inc's NFLX investment of $189 million has garnered 6.01%.

By far the largest gains, of 70%, were made on Tesla Inc. TSLA shares, on the original investment of $123 million, which is worth $200.9 million as of Monday's closing.

Why It Matters

Last week, SoftBank announced the launch of a new asset management venture to purchase stocks of publicly traded companies, Bloomberg reported. 

“As an investment company, we need to explore various angles and scope. But our focus is still on companies driving the information revolution,” Chairman Masayoshi Son said at the time.

Last week, the Japanese group posted $12 billion first-quarter profits and beat earnings expectations by near 71%. 

The profits were driven by the company’s vision fund, which reported an income of $1.2 billion in the period.

Son has managed to effect a turnaround at the Vision Fund, whose investments in the office space rental firm WeWork and Uber Technologies Inc UBER had led to a $10.6 billion loss in the preceding quarter. 

Price Action 

SoftBank OTC shares closed nearly 0.9% higher at $27.91 on Monday.

Photo courtesy: QuoteInspector.com on Flickr