Masayoshi Son, the defiant founder of SoftBank, admitted he had turned a “blind eye” to governance lapses at WeWork but vowed to revive the crisis-hit group after disclosing a $4.6bn writedown on the Japanese company’s investment in it.
The dismal results on Wednesday came two weeks after SoftBank agreed a $9.5bn package to rescue the US office-sharing group following an aborted attempt at an initial public offering. The deal saw WeWork’s valuation sink from $47bn in January to $8bn.
Despite the setback, Mr Son defended SoftBank’s strategy in his two-hour presentation, insisting the WeWork deal was not “a bailout”, its $97bn Vision Fund was still doing better than other venture capitalists, and that plans to deploy another $100bn fund were on track.