Soured investments, a projected record loss and a rating cut are not turning SoftBank Group Corp. analysts and investors into bears on the stock.
That’s because they believe a massive $23 billion share buyback plan will buoy SoftBank’s shares for months to come, more than offsetting the hit from the Vision Fund’s write-downs.
Masayoshi Son’s tech giant last month cranked up the size of its share-buyback plan to ¥2.5 trillion, to be funded with proceeds from asset sales. The stock is up 38 percent since then, continuing to rise even after it said earlier this month that it will post an operating loss of ¥1.35 trillion for the business year ended in March on hits from the Vision Fund’s soured wagers on such startups as WeWork and OneWeb.
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