Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company plans to invest as much as US$15 billion over five years in Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group’s technology fund.
The SoftBank Vision Fund will be “wrapped up” in two to three weeks with as much as $95bn in investments, Ibrahim Ajami, the head of venture capital at Mubadala Capital, said in Abu Dhabi yesterday.
“This is a significant opportunity for good financial returns,” Mr Ajami said. “Our priority is financial return. If you look at his track record over the past 30 years, what he’s been able to achieve in technology, no other investor has,” he said, referring to the SoftBank chief executive, Masayoshi Son.
SoftBank unveiled plans for the Vision Fund last year, aiming to create a vehicle that would become one of the biggest technology investors over the next decade. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, as well as technology majors Apple and Qualcomm, have indicated that they will participate.
Last week, SoftBank said its full-year net profit tripled largely thanks to one-off gains from the sale of a stake in the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba.
The company said net profit for the year ended in March came in at ¥1.43 trillion (Dh4.63bn), compared with ¥474.17bn the previous year. Operating profit rose 12.9 per cent.
SoftBank said it booked ¥238.10bn in gains from share sales in other companies, mostly resulting from the sale of a partial stake in Alibaba.
The firm said last year that it planned to reduce its stake in Alibaba from 32.2 per cent to about 28 per cent.
In June it also sold the Finnish game-maker Supercell Oy, the creator of Clash of Clans, to Chinese internet major Tencent for $8.6bn.
* Agencies
business@thenational.ae
Follow The National's Business section on Twitter
