Q3 2023 SoftBank Group Corp Earnings Presentation
This.
Speaker 1: This is about 13.93 D.O.N. and the loan to value to check the safetiness of the debt, which is 18.2%. So this is to calculate loan against how much we have as an asset.
Speaker 2: does are well managed in safe level and being in this position we believe as an investment company as long as we being conservative in terms of new investment activities and so on we believe that we'll be able to maintain this healthy organizations, healthy business. Compared to the end of September , let us say that it has decreased a bit. September end was 16.7 trillion yen and this time at the December quarter, 13.9. But we did have a foreign exchange impact which was not small. 1.5 trillion yen equivalent was about an impact to net asset value so that not directly from the fundamentals from the portfolio companies or industries. For any exchange September end was 144 yen per dollar and December end was 132 yen per dollar. So this was quite a volatile and made an impact to our assets as well as P&L. So long to value 18.2% of the attitude.
Speaker 3: here at all and we have a very ample cash position and what is this for you may ask. This is whenever we
Speaker 4: at all and we have a very ample cash position and what is this for you may ask. This is whenever we would like to.
Speaker 5: switch our mode to offense, we would be able to play for that and we would like to be prepared for the time to come. And as of today, safety net is as you saw, but for the Bijon Fund.
Speaker 6: In over past one year or so, our environment was very tough and very severe management has been executed.
Speaker 7: So with the tightened management...
Speaker 8: And based on that, we would like to see how the market and environments will go and change.
Speaker 9: When do we start playing office? Which is a quite difficult question, but I want you to also see in the market situation. This is equity market.
Speaker 10: So we have September end and December end for the quarter end. But from December end to as of today, to date basis, on your far right on the chart, this is actually showing some increasing trend since December end.
Speaker 11: one example
Speaker 12: is S&P 500 NASDAQ and also Gordon Dragon China
Speaker 13: This is the Chinese companies in Nasdaq.
Speaker 14: And each, actually that we also picked up the examples of our public securities that held by Bijon Fund 1, Bijon Fund 2 and SPG itself. And these are the......
Speaker 15: major investee of each parties and you see it has some characteristics but trend wise
Speaker 16: In the past one year or two years it has hit the bottom and actually showing the sign of increasing.
Speaker 17: That's something that I believe we can...
Speaker 18: summarize as a kind of a one-year history. From now, what's happening after this, we believe that there will be three scenarios that we can think of, and we are actually prepared for each scenario.
Speaker 19: of these three scenarios.
Speaker 20: for our financial strategies or for the time of to switch our modes from defense to offense. So scenario one is the optimistic scenario which is the linear recovery scenario two.
Speaker 21: instability followed by recovery from second half this year.
Speaker 22: stability followed by recovery from second half this year. Which is?
Speaker 23: Based on the view by Ana Vista, Margit's
Speaker 24: Based on the view by Anadista Market.
Speaker 25: I believe that the majority of the people are actually looking into this scenario two. And scenario three is a further decline followed by recovery after 2024.
Speaker 26: So in each scenario, actually we are fully prepared for that because that investment as an investment company we need to face those reality. In that case, do we...
Speaker 27: Thank you.
Speaker 28: want to and we do want to
Speaker 29: being very robust in terms of balance sheet so that we'll be able to be prepared for any risk case scenario. So optimistic case, pessimistic case or the base case, but as an investment company, we believe it is even more important for us to keep the defense mode.
Speaker 30: I believe.
Speaker 31: We can change our mode to offense mode anytime.
Speaker 32: As you saw that we have a very ample cash position so that we can change our mood anytime if we wish to which means we don't have to rush we don't want to waste money either. And this is the market view.
The private equity is the main direction for the visual fund investments and we being seeing the factors that we need to focus, which includes inflation trends, key interest rates.
possible rescissions and
and in addition
We also need to focus and pay attention to these tension situations caused by this geopolitical risks and situations.
So we do need to kind of make an outlook based on those movements.
for the equity market recovery.
There are many voices said that the second half of this year is something that we may see in recovery, but also we need to pay attention to the pessimistic scenario of further decline.
And the majority of our investees are the private companies, therefore, can they do the financing under such circumstance? And also can they look for IPO event in the course of their process? So those are
being there as a vision capitalist for the information revolution and also our fund is managed by the long term. We want to be the biggest players in the information revolution.
and the good support. And from the SoftBank Group's point of view, we have a direct investment in ARM, which is very much focused. And other than that, we have SoftBank Corp, mobile operators, and also.
The holdings, which you recently announced, the margins, the amongst the FU corporations and lines corporations. So as an shareholders of those companies that we do need to be prepared in being a
results which is shown on page 19. This is result from the first quarter through third quarter of FY 2022. Net sales 4.8 trillion yen. Loss on investment.
1.3 trillion yen income before income tax minus 290 billion yen net loss minus
912 billion yen. We are still against wind.
You go.
And...
Thank you.
Thank you.
These are the construction numbers and we have some specific characteristics when it comes to...
gain or loss on investment
Last financial result announcement, we explained a little bit about Alibaba's transaction. We did early settlement of Alibaba's and we had about 3.7 trillion yen.
And that was a big gain in the last nine months. However, looking at the loss...
Thank you. Thank you.
From Q1 through Q3, we are looking at 5 trillion loss from the Softbank Vision Fund. The loss has increased.
So...
In that.
We are looking at loss of investment by 1.3 trillion. And again this is loss of investment. The number of the information here is income before income tax by the segment.
andsince reason happen.
So or to that doing money.
Thank you, John Funds, income before income tax.
was a negative 4 trillion.
The difference between loss in investment and income before income tax is
because
Elp is holding.
Thank you.
was deducted or not. When it comes to loss of investment?
Alibabatsu Gain was included.
So bank arms.
All in good, especially arms.
We are looking at consecutive positive numbers which I will come back to later in my presentation. What income by the quarterly is shown on this slide.
on the far right.
minus 783.
This is third quarter number. But in the second quarter, because of the gain from Alibaba transaction, we are looking at a positive three trillion yen.
This was one time and if we didn't have that animal transaction, we would have seen negative numbers in the second...
of net asset value.
We call EEM has a positive impact. Why? Because most of our assets are held in foreign denomited currency.
So for example, if Yen gets weaker against dollar assets in dollar term.
is improved. However, in recent months, Yen is getting a little bit stronger. That's why this number compared to the September number is a little bit smaller. And in terms of consolidated net income.
My order compared to first half of this office school year.
When it comes to monetization
All we will see.
real value. Of course, foreign exchange goes up or down, but we are not exercising extreme hedging.
Again, most of our payment is in dollar terms.
So, we have a good balance of assets held in yen and assets held in foreign currencies. Next slide shows net asset value, the trend since 1999. In the last 12 months, the trend is downward due to market conditions.
But still, we have a net asset value as much as 14 trillion yen. In the history of South Bang, we believe this is never good enough.
From September through December net asset value decreased from 19.7 to 16.9. And if you go deeper, impact from Forex is 1.5 trillion. Also, share price had impact by about 0.0 trillion and share repurchases impact about 0.5 trillion and also we paid tax. Therefore...
Nav as of December 31 is 14 trillion. And that asset value per share and share price is shown here.
And also you can see discount against actual
market price which I'm sure investors are interested.
As of September and discount was about 55%.
A stock price was less than 5,000 yen. As of December and discount was 40%, so 15% improvement it looks like.
and the stock price went up which is good but the fact of the matter is assets went down so even though discount was improved we can't be 100% happy about this.
We need to make sure that our industries will gain values, improve values while we can improve our discount.
By the way, our stock prices have been performing well.
As of February 3rd, the price was 6,328.
Now equity value of holdings.
So in the design of our website Vault, we'll have understand that how many areas have been collected behind this election so if you're more concerned with it, then you're out.
That smo you do, and.
as of December end.
It was 16.9 trillion EM.
Thank you.
One year ago, if you look at the far right bar,
excuse me, left bar.
Alibaba's portion decreased from Q3FI 2021 to Q3FI 2022 of equity value holding from Q3FI 2021 to Q3FI 2021 of equity value holding
And in fact, SOPPEN-KK accounts for 13%, which is bigger than Alibaba.
And Softbank Vision Fund accounts for 43%, and Arm, which is a private company, accounts for 16%, which is a good presence here in terms of equity value of holdings.
And how should we look at decrease of equity value of holdings?
At the beginning of the term...
at the beginning of the German or
end of March last year, if you compare to the end of March last year
The equity value of the holdings was us.
23.
and now 16.9% was at a significant decrease while not necessarily so because a 3.2 treatment was for monetization.
So that's
one driver of the decrease.
So it's not a simple decrease from 23 to 16. In reality...
it would have been from 23 to 20 and
Three is for monetization or exchange to cash which is stronger.
This is our final This is our final
Be sad.
We had 3.2 million of improvements in terms of equity value holdings.
So if you look at the diversified portfolio in pie chart.
Thank you.
Like I said, Olya.
A big increase came from Alibaba.
Big decrease came from Alibaba. Bitcoin and Enough is one coin. B formation is next.
43%. You may say that this still has a big portion of the pie chart.
43% consists of about 500 companies in the portfolio.
Thank you.
It's very important from a value perspective and a safety perspective.
From credit perspective and value perspective,
From April 1st through December 31st, we have been further diversified portfolio.
But from the rating perspective...
Thank you.
before the opening of the
shares. If you look at the right top corner as of March 31, 2022, percent of this shares was 52 percent. And as of December 31, it went down to 44 percent.
business. Now let me touch upon SOPAN Vision Funds.
This slide, which is page 30
Q. Is gain or loss of investment since the inception of Softbank Vision Fund? Unfortunately, she was unreminated.
Thank you.
We are looking at
Know.
increased loss.
But this funge, longevity is long.
And
We need to make sure that we will do our best to increase the value of the funds even further.
And the next slide shows gain or loss in investment.
on quarterly basis.
ok.
In the latest quarter, which the third quarter of 2022, we are looking at minus of.
5.1 billion.
So those continues, but as far as the graph goes...
The fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year were most challenging but it's been improving since then so we are on the improvement trend.
to value our assets as conservative as possible, especially when it comes to private companies, valuing, evaluating private company is very important and also difficult. So we are looking at the third party's views and also we combined with other indexes and every quarter we are looking at the
We mark those investments.
Again, our investment longevity is long and we will do new investments and also we will increase the value of the portfolio.
so that we can...
make the funds a success as a core business of our group.
As you know, we have Softank Vision Fund 1 and Softank Vision Fund 2.
Now, this slide shows SoftPank Vision Fund 1's cumulative investment return.
Investment cost $89.6 billion.
writing an enhancement to reach a turn.
as of December 31st was 100 billion. As you can see...
existed in portion
Increased.
And private companies currently held, we have high expectations from those private companies. And the public company currently held not exited yet.
Currently, return is getting smoother.
So, cost is bigger than the return for the public companies currently held. That's a challenge for us. Vision Fund 2's cumulative investment return is shown here.
natative new.
fun
and they have been looking at very challenging market conditions.
Since the inception, investment cost...
49 billion and the cumulative investment to return 33 billion.
That's a very concept, but a view of ours.
Part of the investments were exhibited.
And.
This portfolio.
management team is working on improving the value of the portfolio. Again, Soft Tank Vision Fund 2 is relatively new.
And
Again, we need to make sure that Vision Center 2 will do their best to increase the value of the portfolio.
Do not.
And from a different angle of the underperformance of the fund.
business.
If you look at this pie chart on the left hand side it shows as of March 31st, 2022.
450 companies consisted of the portfolio.
and whether the value was gained or lost. At that point, hunders
69 companies lost values whereas 163 companies gained value. But again since then market condition has been very very challenging.
And although the company invested increased to 472, of that 344 lost their values.
and uh
even though the market condition was very tough. A thousand companies had over one hundred units active critical healthInstants
gained value. So some companies were doing good but the most of the companies however are struggling.
And that shows the overall trend globally.
I believe that other similar funds like us are against the tough wind, but...
Wait
as a venture capital.
I committed to supporting.
emerging businesses going forward.
And this slide shows gain or loss on investments and factors behind gain or loss.
If you look at Mark Down cases,
38 companies, public portfolio companies.
16.6 million marked down.
And
Performance of the company was another reason why 138 companies are marked down by 12 million.
That's something specific in the quarter.
So not only the market but also economic environment and supply chain disruptions. There are some risks and challenges that those portfolio companies are struggling against.
Investment amounts are shown here. We remain focused on defense. In fact, in the last quarter, we invested a lot of money in the investment.
only about point three billion dollars.
compared to the last year, as you can see, we limit investment to one tenth.
This slide shows stock offerings and sales and monetization.
We don't have many number of stock offerings on the four companies and sales or monetization.
We did it by 6.5 billion.
But we are not desperate in terms of monetization. We are looking at
potential of the portfolio companies and also balance of the holdings. We will make sure that we have a most appropriate policy for monetization ourselves in the future.
We do not want to pick seeds that have huge potentials in the future.
So I understand there are some concerns from investors or the market for soft bank vision funds and I pick up some examples here. What's the policy? And portfolio companies, cash runways, alright.
So I understand there are some concerns from investors or the markets for Sotwang Vision funds and I pick up some examples here. What's the policy? And for the portfolio companies cash runways. All right.
Are we adding value to portfolio companies?
or how are we operating and also for any IPO plans. I believe these are the kind of common concerns or questions that you may have. And starting from the policy, this is almost similar with the soft land.
that we are heightened disciplines for new investments and also enhancing the value of current portfolios.
And
Based on the needs from portfolios.
We are also supporting a variety of the actions and events, expansion of business or entering into new markets through the M&A and
through the partnership of opening new channels and accelerating innovations. Also efficiency improvement is one of the biggest agenda, so that the driving, up-ex reductions and so on. So those are the...
support and sometimes recommend for the concerned parties. Keshe Rauweith of portfolio companies. When you look at Vision Fund 1.
99% of the companies does have cash runways of over 12 months. When it comes to Vision Fund 2, compared to Vision Fund 1, of course because it's more new companies, new investments than Vision Fund 1, so it's not 99%, but about 90% of the companies.
are securing 12 months or above more cash runways. But the fund is a little bit lower than that, close to 80%. So it looks the same circles in a three respective fund, but actually the size of each fund is different.
portfolios are very stable in terms of cash management. For the fund level initial tips, we are very much paying attention to diversification of portfolio and very much discipline monetization. So we are not...
disparate to monetize everything but actually that we would like to have a very much disciplined way of monetization and in addition to that distribution another initiative that we are working on. One of the biggest characteristics of the B. John Fundy is that the ticket size is large.
make many investments in such companies or such businesses and that's one of the benefits that we have to have operating such a huge fund.
Really.
So these companies of the 37 billion or above investment in late stage is something that we can say that in a better position for future IPO. So once the environment and markets are becoming clearer, then I believe that we can have good expectations for the future.
In the past 20 years, 30 years, semiconductor industry itself has changed a lot. We have heard media reports about Japan's semiconductor industry and its weakened market positions.
netting, US-China trade frictions and so on. Japan used to account for...
Near the, I would say 50% of the global market about 30 years ago, 40 years ago, however, now it's estimated to be around below 10%.
At the time that Japan had a share of 50 percent...
The role of semiconductors was different. Those days, the electric appliances were the kind of main user and they were actually integrated model that the way the older process is starting from design to manufacturing.
The designated approach become more popular where design and manufacturing are separated. In the design stage, fabulous firms focus on cheap design and development using open architecture like GOM, where the foundry firms focus on manufacturing.
They are also not having any plans, but actually they are designing the chip and asking OEMs to update their chip and gotta use a printer to support or rework their chip.
So we are in a very much changed to this aggregated approach. And that change itself is actually even boosting the value of arm in the market and making arm stronger in the market.
So the value chain of semi-conductive as you can see, a semi-conductive IP to start with.
And then on to chip design, manufacture, OEM product, and software and applications.
So with those process, semiconductor product is available for you so that you can enjoy using the service.
Computer chips are now so complex that the semiconductor industry has disaggregated into specialists and these specialist companies provide building blocks or tools such as CPU, memory controller and display interface.
In these building books are used by public chip design companies to design the semi-conductor.
And these building blocks are used by public chip design companies to design the semiconductor.
And this design step is accelerated by using the pre-built components from the IP specialist.
And this design step is accelerated by using the pre-built components from the IP specialist.
and I have been contacted by the director of the ACF. I was assigned to the ACF.
and these foundries, design companies will subcontract the manufacturing to a foundry.
And due to the huge cost of building a fab where chips are made, few design companies can afford to do this themselves. Only few companies can afford that by themselves.
And once a chip is made, it becomes part of the materials going into an OEM product, such as a smartphone or car.
So as you can see on this page 49, arm is kind of a starting point.
of relay and then bringing onto chip design manufacturer OEM product to software and applications.
And then you'll be able to see the one completed product for you.
And these products are indeed everywhere. I believe that almost.
everything with electricity is using these products and
250 billion.
150 billion
Excuse me, 250 billion has been shipped.
And this is a graph to show the shipments that have been made. And immediately after we are invested in arm that the U.M.A. Rico, one side that we show at the Arnex Results Announcement, which is something that
a much that actually these are the forecast numbers. So we are expecting that 200 video shipments is expected for 2021. And actually, March 2021 already we have exceeded 200 billion and at the end of December , 2021.
is actually even more growing.
And we're expecting to expand the business.
8 billion. What's this number?
RMB ships shipped from July to September 2022. This is the recorded number and one third.
What's this? Of all chips, word processors are arm-paced.
So, our market share is this big and 70%.
of the world's population uses arm technology every day.
I think it's in sync with the penetration of mobile phones.
and armad
technology helps them to work in good performance. All is gaining market share as the shipment number grows.
in four spaces, for example, mobile.
Marked share grew from 90% in 2016 to 95% in 2021. IoT from 30% to 63% automotive from 10% to 24% and cloud 0% to 5%. In fact, a mobile space close to 100%. And it can't
be exceeding 100%, but
I can go into adjacent areas from the mobile space and when it comes to IoT.
This arm has most advanced technology.
on
was not really adopted at an early stage of Internet of Things, but it's been changing.
high performing chips are needed in IoT market and accordingly arms market share grew from 30% to 63% in the space of automotive as automobiles have more functions
and high performing chips inside automobiles are needed more and more and in the space of cloud initially the shear
was zero percent.
But we're working with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, those big cloud players.
Which?
have adopted arm-to-chip technology, so accordingly arm has grown market share from 0 to 5%.
We want new technologies and new products.
In order to meet consumer expectations, manufacturers.
need to deliver high end products continuously.
Touch too to smartphones.
In fact, one smartphone...
It has 50 semiconductors per device and game console, 100 semiconductors per console. When it comes to high-end automotive.
Maybe Lexus for example or Porsche and Tesla.
very different.
cars than traditional cars, those high-end automobiles have 10,000 semiconductors per car and in those spaces ARM has great opportunities.
And ARMS is looking at the growth of revenue.
CAZA is 19%.
and adjusted EBITDA.
A4
and the latest nine months.
It grew by 71%.
Size of semiconductor industry is going to be bigger and bigger for long term.
in very short-term silicon cycle.
In a long run, sometimes you may see ups and downs but...
I don't think that currently used chips will.
go down and ask products
get higher end and have more functionalities.
and more OMS semiconductors will be used in those devices and arm strength can meet our strong expectations. And the future of arm is tremendous. OMS strategy is
not to sit and wait for the market to grow. In fact, ARM strategy have four pillars.
to maintain or gain share in long-term growth markets.
Because they've got almost 100% share of smartphone, they want to keep the share. And also they want to develop more advanced IP delivering a greater value.
While maintaining a strong hold
wants to invest in emerging technology areas and to make sure that they have appropriate price points.
by gaining market share in CPU and by increasing a GPU market, then loyalty per piece should go up.
and the loyalty, they need to make sure that their loyalty is almost a proper level for them.
And in a long term, they want to create a sustainable business.
fit for the future, not only developing things that can sell now, but they want to also focus on developing technologies that can grow in 10 years or even further down the road.
In fact, what's happening is efforts paid off by the people that they took some time ago.
We announced the plan of RPO.
And we are planning to have ARM's IPO sometime in 2023.
And the preparation ends on the way and we will see how the market condition goes.
Last but not least, no change in financial strategy.
Thank you.
I don't go into too much detail as it has no change, but while we're keeping our financial policy, we will look into and explore the investment opportunity. So it's not that we're going to be prioritizing investment to a financial policy.
Talking about this financial policy for over, I would say 14 years, even one quarter that we missed this word and maintain loan to value below 25% in normal times, maintain at least two year worth of bond redemption and secure recurring distributions and dividend income and monetization in the capital allocation.
So when you see the waterfall of these, at the end of last fiscal year, March 2022, we had cash position of 2.7. And with the monetization, we had increase of 4.3 trillion yen and we used
on the 0.42 union for the vision front investment and 2.7 are used for the debt repayments to improve balance sheet for the credit investors for the loan.
investors that we wanted to return. Share repurchase of course is a return to shareholders so we always are keeping these three factors in mind. So money, once it's available, of course that the investments by Bijon Fund is something that we wanted to use so ok ok
position for the December end.
Cash position 3.8 trillion. Again, this is fully covered to the equivalent of the bond redemptions. Bye-Bye.
Since last year we had purchased total 1.4 trillion yen. You may, all the investors may wonder, do we have any other program to announce? But actually we have already done 1.4 trillion yen. But buyback or the share repurchase is always the very important agenda for the industry.
We have no change in principle, always being a vision capitalist for the information revolution. We would like to...
be the player to lead IoT AI. And for, as an engine for the Softman Group overall, we have, we are looking at that company as a net assets value based on the assets.
working on further good management. And we are having a very steady and good performance, and the Master who is not here today, but he has been.
very excited about the future of ARM and the chip future, so that the deepness of the market or the size of the transactions, those can be something that we are very much expecting and we are very much sure that this...
is very much working hard on that too.
I believe such steps for the growth is something that we always need to keep in mind for the future and the development and growth of SoftBank Group. So of course we need to keep in good defence mode but at the same time we want to keep a good focus on something that we should be focusing on.
Now we'd like to move on to Q&A session.
First, we'd like to take questions from the floor.
Please wait for the microphone. If you are called out, start with your name and affiliation. For those who are on Zoom, please press the raise hand button and wait for your name to be called.
You would like to withdraw your question, please press the lower hand button.
If you access to a Japanese line you...
Ask questions in Japanese.
We'd like to take up to two questions per person so that we can take questions from as many people as possible. We are starting from the floor now.
Please raise your hand if you have questions.
raise your hand if you have questions.
I have two questions. First, maybe a very small thing.
and when it comes to your investment of a vision fund.
from October to December .
point three of a VM
Is it only one company or not? That's the first question. Second question as interest rates are going up.
when it comes to repayment.
or when the bones are
Então
Are you going to...
But again, or how do you see increasing interest rates? Thank you very much. The number of companies invested by SVF in the third quarter, Navinit, can you answer that question, please?
Yes, sure. It's not one company. It's more than one company that we invest in it. It's a couple of companies.
Couple of, right? Two companies. It's more than two. It's a handful of companies.
Couple of, right? Two companies. It's more than two. It's a handful of companies.
Thank you very much.
The second question.
about increasing interest rate.
Of course, we are looking at that trend in Japan.
We are looking at that trend in Japan.
Governor of Bank of Japan, next Governor of Bank of Japan.
Bank of Japan, Nick Next, Governor of Japan. Here's a view.
has a strong impact in terms of cost of our bones, in terms of Japanese bones. Maybe 1% increase can be possible, but our target?
Financing cost.
should have no risk for foreseeable future.
The impact of increasing interest on our
financing cost. Well 80% is fixed rate so we don't see any impact from the increased interest rate. And for variable rate not only that but also we have deposits.
In terms of dollar denominated, our financing cost is huge but also
return on the deposit, interest on the deposit is also big. So for Japanese bonds, even though risk is materialized by increased rate of interest,
Maybe 6 to 7 billion impact but from our total bowling perspective you can be reassured.
Thank you. Any other questions, please? The second row from the front. Black shirt gentlemen, please.
My name is Nakaga from Newspix. I have two questions first. Vision Fund, I understand there were restructuring in Vision Fund which was also mentioned in the last quarter. How much reduction has been made in terms of head counts? And also, how much has been made in terms of head counts?
You said that there are monitoring and supporting the existing portfolio, but with this reduced organization, can you still maintain the operation for the supporting portfolio? My second question, bye-bye.
has been done and I believe that the Masa's ownership stake in Softbank Group has exceeded one third. And how do you feel about that?
And there are some discussion about the management buyouts and so on on the speculations. What is your view on that?
Thank you for your question. For the first question...
for the vision of an event. Can you please also answer that?
So the reduction in headcount was previously reported to be greater than 30%. In terms of our portfolio companies, we are very well resourced with over 300 professionals to support our portfolio companies. So we feel we are right sized in the current environment.
Thank you. For your next question regarding Masa's ownership, this is only because of the result of buyback, 1.42 D on Yen, which was quite a huge size of the buyback, has been executed.
and this was also in view of return to shareholders. As a result, that increased the stake by Masa, but we are not intending to do so, anything, so that we don't have any specific comments on that. But I would say he is also the stable investor. He is a stable shareholder as well.
Thanks, soakmoi confident challenge.
Are there any other questions from the floor?
Thank you very much for taking my questions. Two questions. Actually first about accounting and second.
press release of our running calls and the second is vision quantum First
I think the first conference is...
done by Goto-san alone for the first time and as you can see we are only a few journalists here on the venue and investors may want to hear directly from Masa-san so watch your
loss 100 billion to maybe
50 billion but we're most analysts estimate. But now we are looking at the number few bigger.
Is that something that you anticipated or loss was bigger than you anticipated from SW gin mango
and full ear
If you lose for the full year, then you will have two consecutive years of loss. What's your view, Goto-san? Thank you very much. First, about the press conference of financial results, and the Masa is not present anymore.
And if we have fewer journalists than before, maybe that's my fault, but I don't know. We have fewer empty, excuse me, we have empty seats, but we have arranged more number of seats on the floor. And if the
reporters on the floor were fewer than before, I'm not sure. But if that's true, maybe that's my fault. It's of course good for Masa to be here to talk directly to you about management strategy. That opportunity should be good for people like you.
In the past, rather than talking about financial numbers, Masa was talking about strategy.
So that was in the past.
every quarter. I think only a few companies do so, like talking about company strategy on quarterly basis. Masha wants to focus his time on whatever he wants to focus on for now. We don't know when, but hopefully sooner.
initially, sopping group as a hoaxing company
We are on the position as investment company. So what will happen in the next quarter? What will happen in the following quarter? Of course, we have some estimate and assumption, but also we need to make sure that we look at markets and market conditions in vermin.
I think as an investment company, as a management of an investment company, it's I think right to view a performance conservatively. And Navneet, would you like to add anything from your perspective?
Thank you, Gugosan. So the performance for the quarter reflects the market conditions at the end of December , and it also reflects the performance of our portfolio companies at the end of December . And in March, at the end of March, we'll see what the market conditions are and how our portfolio companies are performing.
Thank you. Any other questions please? Then we would like to take a one question from the floor. My name is Yamabuchwaram, my new genius paper. IP or market, a stock exchange for ARM. Mata mentioned that looking at NASDAQ.
Thank you.
MP
Thank you very much. Then in the interest of time, that's all from the audience on the floor. I'll move on to questions from participants online.
Please make sure that you turn off a live stream other than zoom online to avoid echo. Again, if you join zoom on the Japanese line, please ask your questions in Japanese. First, Mr. Nagoshi from NHK.
about arms IPO.
There was a news article that you discussed with the government about listing in Lungjong. Are you considering Lungjong or NASDAQ? So what's your progress on the preparation of ARM IPO? That's my first question. And second, 1.5 trillion of...
capacity to issue bond? What's the intention? Is it for the purpose of new investment in the future or not? Thank you. First, about ARM, maybe Ian once again about ARM.
So, we are indeed considering NASDAQ, NYSE and London, but no decision has been taken at this time. In terms of the IPO itself, I mean, for the IPO to proceed both ARM meets to be ready and the market meets to be ready. ARM's IPO preparations are what advanced. The market appear to be improving and hopefully will continue to do so.
markets have high interest in arms future IPO. We are grateful for that. About your second question.
It's rather technical.
In fact, we only have little capacity to issue bonds. So when we did...
only have little capacity to issue bonds. So when we did expand thatonda
We did the same thing, once you issue 200, 300, then the remaining capacity goes down. So we don't have intention to issue like 1.5 trillion yen a bond, so it's just a technical matter.
We did the same thing. Once you issue to 100, 300, then the remaining capacity goes down. So we don't have intention to issue like 1.5 trillion yen a bond. So it's just a technical matter. Thank you.
Now we would like to take our next question. Mr. Nakajima from Kyoto, Tsuchin, please unmute.
Yes, thank you very much for taking my question. Can you hear me okay? Yes, please.
Thank you.
I would like to ask you or your expectation on interest rate policy by Bank of Japan. So I believe that...
compared to central banks in US and European countries, they are very much normalized, but we believe that Japanese banks are behind those tips.
and there are many focus on how Bank of Japan is going to be bringing the interest rate back to normal and with your view, what is your expectation on the interest rate policy by BOJ?
Our company doesn't have any specific comments on your question, but I can say is that expectations are in tune to all of thebag
on interest rate being commented by many banks and industries.
Hopefully, without any surprise, we will be able to see the good landing without any
Harder for us and our business itself of course cheaper is better when it comes to the interest rate however I am not in position to say anything about that I believe that it is even more important to see Japan overall when it comes to interest rates
Thank you. Thank you very much. That's all for Q&A session. Thank you very much for your questions.
This concludes the SoftBank Group Cooperation earnings results briefing for the 9-month period ended December 31, 2022.
The video footage of this briefing will be uploaded on our corporate website.
Thank you very much once again for joining the SOPAN Group Corporation earnings results briefing for the 9-month period ended December 31, 2022.
Thank you.