Masayoshi Son of SoftBank steps down from Alibaba’s board

The decision to step down follows the departure of Jack Ma from SoftBank’s board

Masayoshi Son, chairman of SoftBank Group, speaks during the company's annual general meeting seen on a laptop computer in Tokyo. Mr Son said he’s departed the board of Chinese e-commerce titan AlibabShow more

SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son ended his company’s annual shareholder meeting with a surprise on Thursday by announcing he is stepping down from the board of Chinese e-commerce titan Alibaba.

The billionaire said his departure should not be interpreted as signifying any disagreements, even though Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma is quitting SoftBank’s board at the same time. Mr Ma and Mr Son have maintained a close friendship since the Japanese entrepreneur was an early investor in Alibaba and helped it along to its current value of roughly $600 billion (Dh2.2 trillion), calling it the crown jewel of SoftBank’s portfolio.

“It’s not like we had a fight,” Mr Son said during the virtual shareholder meeting. “This was perfectly amicable.”

While the mutual departures are unlikely to have an immediate impact on either company, they mark the end of an era. The two men are among the most successful entrepreneurs of their generation and have been able to rely on each other’s advice for decades. Mr Son was on Alibaba’s board as it went public in 2014 in the largest initial public offering in history. When SoftBank ran into trouble with investment losses this year, Mr Son was able to use his Alibaba stake to raise much-needed capital.

“The joint board membership was a big positive for both companies because it gave them a way to benchmark their respective business models,” said Michiaki Tanaka, a business school professor at Rikkyo University in Tokyo. “Not having that board-level contact is a big loss.”

Alibaba remains Mr Son’s most successful investment by far and SoftBank’s most valuable asset. In early 2000, Mr Son invested $20 million into the then-unknown web portal connecting Chinese manufacturers with overseas buyers, a stake that is now worth more than $150bn. That spectacular return cemented his reputation as an investor and later helped him raise the $100bn Vision Fund. Mr Son has previously spoken highly of Mr Ma.

“He had no business plan, zero revenue,” Mr Son said about Mr Ma on The David Rubenstein Show. “But his eyes were very strong. I could tell from the way he talked, he has charisma, he has leadership.”

Mr Son is known for anointing the entrepreneurs he finds particularly promising as “the next Jack Ma,” and Alibaba has long served as the standard against which he has judged SoftBank’s other start-up investments. But his recent track record has been spotty. Starting with WeWork’s failed initial public offering last year, Mr Son has suffered a string of setbacks at portfolio companies including Wag Labs, Zume Pizza and Brandless. SoftBank lost almost $18bn writing down the value of its start-up companies in the last fiscal year.

Still, Mr Son struck an optimistic note at the shareholder meeting Thursday. He began the presentation to investors in typical fashion, reaffirming his conviction that a global digital transformation and the advent of artificial intelligence – both accelerated during the pandemic –will help his investments in the likes of TikTok-owner ByteDance and British chip designer Arm. He again said the market was underestimating SoftBank’s potential, arguing that the Japanese giant’s shareholder value now stood at $218bn, more than double its current market capitalisation.

Coming off the deal to sell a stake in T-Mobile US that should net SoftBank as much as $20bn, Mr Son is shoring up his company’s finances by offloading assets, including $11.5bn from issuing contracts to sell Alibaba stock. SoftBank has now completed 80 per cent of its envisioned ¥4.5tn (Dh154bn) of asset sales designed to bankroll stock buybacks and slash debt to reassure investors.

A shareholder asked at the Thursday meeting how many of the 88 companies SoftBank’s Vision Fund currently has on its books will be the next Alibaba. Mr Son’s answer was that there are one or two “mini-Alibabas”.