SoftBank reports net income of $12.7 Bn in last 9 months in 2017

Japanese conglomerate Softbank has reported 39 per cent up in net income to $12.7 billion in a span of nine months (April-December) last year.

During the aforementioned period, the company Earning Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) rose by 24 per cent to nearly $10.7 billion on account of cost reduction efforts for Sprint, a telecom company and valuation gain in its Vision and Delta Funds, outlined Medianama report.

SoftBank, which has aggressively invested in India, mulling for an initial public offering (IPO) of its domestic telecom operation. In addition to its domestic operation, the investment conglomerate major businesses are chip maker ARM, Yahoo! Japan, Sprint, Alibaba, Fortress Investment Group.

Of late, SoftBank grabbed headlines with its $100 billion Vision Fund and its CEO Masayoshi Son's aggressive pace of deal-making across internet startups globally.

In India, SoftBank has invested in startups such as Paytm, Flipkart, OYO Rooms, Ola, Snapdeal, Grofers, InMobi, Housing, among others. Son had last time emphasised that he would like to back startups with valuations of $1 billion or more. He also said that most of his investments have the leading market shares in the country.

Softbank had invested $2.5-2.6 billion in Flipkart and $1.4 billion Paytm. Son claimed that both had about 60% market share indicating their leadership positions in their respective markets and bigger than Amazon.

In ride-hailing space, Softbank along with Tencent had put in $2 billion investment Ola, which is as per Son was clocking 1.5 million rides daily. Recently, SoftBank picked up a 15 per cent stake in its rival Uber. $1.4 billion.

Looking at India’s market potential in the insurance sector, it is also planning to make an investment in some leading startups.

It is reportedly in talks to back leading online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar at a valuation of around $800 million. The talks are still on as Softbank wants to own a majority stake, which is currently held by Tiger Global Management and Temasek Holdings.

The Gurugram-based company has been planning to go for IPO next year.

Insurance penetration was estimated to cross 4 percent in 2017 and the domestic market is projected to quadruple over the next 10 years from the current $60 billion.

In December last year, the firm led a $120 million investment in Lemonade, a New York-based home insurance startup.