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The story
SoftBank Group (SBG) reported a net loss of ¥768 billion for the April-September 2026 period in consolidated earnings announced on November 10, 2026. It marks a dramatic reversal from the ¥2.924 trillion profit posted in the same period a year earlier, driven mainly by losses tied to a revamp of its U.S. AI data center plans and rising selling, general and administrative expenses. Investment profit from the Vision Fund business, which backs companies like OpenAI, also shrank to a tenth of what it was the previous year. On 5ch, discussion ranged widely — from points about the difference between IFRS consolidated results and tax burdens, to concerns that the massive investment in OpenAI hasn’t paid off, to reactions riffing on the decades-old running joke that Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank is “always about to collapse.”
SoftBank Group posts ¥768 billion net loss for April-September on U.S. data center losses
SoftBank Group (SBG) announced on the 10th that its consolidated earnings (under IFRS) for the April-September 2026 period showed a net loss of ¥768 billion (versus a profit of ¥2.924 trillion in the same period last year). The loss was driven up by SG&A expenses and losses tied to changes in its U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) data center plans.
Investment profit from the Vision Fund business, which invests in companies like OpenAI, shrank to a tenth of last year’s level at ¥341.2 billion
Source: nikkei.com / Original article here
What people said
https://forbesjapan.com/feat/japanrich/
¥12.7 trillion Son (SoftBank) (University of California)
¥10.3 trillion Yanai (Uniqlo) (Waseda University)
¥3.76 trillion Takizaki (Keyence) (high school grad)
¥1.48 trillion Saji (Suntory) (Keio University)
¥1.45 trillion Sekiya (Disco) (Keio University)
¥955 billion Shigeta (Hikari Tsushin) (Nihon University)
¥748 billion Yasuda (PPIH) (Keio University)
¥732 billion Dokujima (Sankyo) (Keio University)
¥636 billion Takenaka (Takenaka Corporation) (Konan University)
¥629 billion Mori (Mori Building) (Keio University)
Barely any actual Japanese people on this list lol
It's all private-university grads.
Are Todai and Kyodai (University of Tokyo and Kyoto University) not even in the picture?
Docomo gives off the vibe of dumping money into pointless stuff like the metaverse and just losing on all of it
A senile Masayoshi Son: "Not yet. Still not enough money."
Taxable income might be in the red too, you know
Everyone knows what IFRS is, come on
Japanese people probably just lack business talent
Or maybe it's a hunger thing
Plenty of second- and third-generation heirs on that list too though
Mizuho's already stripped that risk off its books
The ones who'll actually eat the loss are Morgan Stanley and whoever bought the bonds
They've surely got proper collateral on it
They've become a top target for environmental activists
If people actually knew how much power GPUs burn through, nobody would be on board with this
They use an insane amount of water too
Power and water — that's the real bottleneck for data centers
"Losses for tax purposes" lol — since when does a loss on a quarterly consolidated statement save you on taxes? lol
That's the kind of thing only tiny owner-run companies pull (lol)
The Shogun, maybe??
but they're not seeing any return on it
OpenAI itself is deep in the red too, with no prospects in sight
The odds are high they'll never recoup that investment
And yet, far from showing any profit right now,
they were apparently already booking the expected post-IPO (listing date still undecided) share-price gains as profit
This is…
The real problem is power and water
Whoever controls the water wins
Looking at posters in shops and train stations these days, it's all become artwork that's obviously AI-generated
The pictures are weirdly too polished, and that's exactly what makes them feel off
SpaceX builds everything in-house even more than Japan's famed manufacturing culture does, so coming from him it actually carries weight
Is ARM really in serious trouble because of China?
Just admit the AI bubble has popped already
To be serious for a second, they did a 3-for-1 split, so it's actually ¥110,000 → ¥27,000
and there's no return coming anytime soon to match that massive investment
Claude's just better, honestly
once you get used to how good Claude is, it's amazing
even paying for "Chappy" (a nickname for ChatGPT among Japanese users) doesn't come close
CDS spreads and debt have steadily climbed, though
their core business performance doesn't even factor in anymore
It is now, but it's been that way forever
even the phone business was always just part of the investment portfolio
SoftBank started out wholesaling software and publishing PC magazines
https://youtu.be/p3nF0HvF5e0&t=290
then teamed up with Rupert Murdoch to buy Obunsha Media — at the time the top shareholder of TV Asahi — off Obunsha itself (they later pulled out after backlash),
also put money into Yahoo!,
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO17666590U7A610C1000000/
and bought the mobile phone business off Vodafone
The SBG being discussed here is the investment holding company
SoftBank (the subsidiary) is the one running telecom, IT, and other businesses
Background and key points of debate
Part of why SBG’s earnings are confusing is that there are actually multiple “SoftBanks” involved. The parent company, SBG, is an investment holding company whose results are driven directly by swings in the valuation of its ARM and Vision Fund shareholdings, while SoftBank Corp., the subsidiary that runs the mobile phone business, is a separate entity whose results aren’t tied to the telecom business’s earnings. Some in the thread claimed the losses were “for tax purposes,” but the quarterly IFRS consolidated results simply reflect mark-to-market valuations of its holdings — a different matter entirely from deliberate tax avoidance. In fact, ARM’s share valuation reportedly dropped more than ¥15 trillion since the end of September, suggesting these valuation losses are what dragged the earnings down. It’s also worth noting that predictions of “Baldy Bank going under” have been a running joke ever since Masayoshi Son first founded SoftBank, and rising debt doesn’t necessarily mean bankruptcy is around the corner.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[Breaking] SoftBank Group’s net loss hits ¥768 billion — losses from AI data centers in April-September.”
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