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by iav 2107 days ago
Unlike VC funds, SoftBank releases full accounting of the Vision fund quarterly, so this question is entirely answered here: https://group.softbank/system/files/pdf/ir/presentations/202...

They had 6 full exits generating $5B of gains, plus another dozen companies went public and the mark to market on the whole is a $3B gain. I don’t see that they’ve ever invested in Bitcoin. The remaining portfolio is down about $5B on $60B invested - I have a lot of questions about how they are marking those securities, but surely it’s similar to the VC model of “Mark to the last third party investment, even if we led the investment, unless something really bad happened”. That’s where the WAG and WeWork losses would be. So all in they still think they are in the black by $3B on $80B invested. Even if they are mis marking the private book by 20%, the fund would generate a 0.9x return or disappointing but not a complete disaster.
2 comments
itsoktocry 2107 days ago
>I don’t see that they’ve ever invested in Bitcoin.

Apparently it was a personal investment:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/23/masayoshi-son-invested-in-bi...

>the fund would generate a 0.9x return or disappointing but not a complete disaster.

Definitely disappointing, with a nearly exclusive biotech/tech portfolio during once of the biggest tech bull runs ever.

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iav 2107 days ago
True, and if I recall Apple is even a “small” LP in the Vision Fund. So Tim Cook could have bought his own stock but instead thought giving a few billion to Masa was a better trade! But hindsight is 20/20 and we don’t know what the fund is ultimately going to return. I have friends who work there - the sad part is the amount of sheer work that had to be done to keep the returns where they are today, restructuring old investments and squeezing every drop from the winners to make up for the total write offs.
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valuearb 2107 days ago
It’s very likely they are mismarking and those returns are overstated to some level.
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