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Masayoshi Son, president and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp., reacts during a dialogue session with Jack Ma, former president of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., not pictured, at the 2019 Tokyo Forum in Tokyo, Japan, Friday, December 6, 2019 .
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg via Getty Images
SoftBank CEO and founder Masayoshi Son said he has aggressively sold assets this year to prepare for a “worst case scenario” that could occur if the world stalled in a second wave of coronavirus outbreaks.
Son spoke virtually from Tokyo on Tuesday at the New York Times Dealbook Conference. He said he had initially aimed for about $ 40 billion in asset sales this year, but ended up selling about $ 80 billion of companies to give the company liquidity in a global emergency.
“In the next two or three months, any disaster could happen,” Son said. “So we’re just preparing for the worst case scenario.”
Among its largest asset sales, SoftBank sold semiconductor company ARM to Nvidia for $ 40 billion and about $ 20 billion of its stake in the new T-Mobile, which merged with Sprint earlier this year. If markets go down, SoftBank could use the money to buy undervalued assets, support portfolio investments in the SoftBank Vision Fund, or buy back more shares, Son said.
While Son did not provide details on what “disaster” might be likely in the coming months, he hinted at the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse for how an event could be a catalyst for a broader collapse.
“Anything can happen in this kind of situation,” Son said. “Sure, the medical vaccine is on its way. But who knows in the next two or three months?”
Son has twice declined to comment on the prospect of depriving SoftBank – an idea the Financial Times reported earlier this year and which Son has considered. With the advice of activist shareholder Elliott Management, SoftBank aggressively repurchased the shares to take advantage of a market discount to the value of SoftBank’s many underlying assets. SoftBank’s Vision Fund has stakes in more than 80 different technology companies.
If Son were to aggressively buy back even more shares, he could actually make a private takeover much easier by increasing his stake in outstanding shares.
Son also said he thinks it is “sad” that the Trump administration has threatened to shut down TikTok in the United States over questionable national security threats. He said the biggest US tech companies shouldn’t be dismembered just because their market valuations are high. In recent months, SoftBank has invested in some of the largest US technology companies.
“Being big and powerful isn’t necessarily bad,” Son said.
WATCH: Masa Son from SoftBank: We want to be prepared for the worst case scenario
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