Once again, Masayoshi Son reigns supreme as Japan’s richest
Having electrified the investing world in 2000, Masayoshi Son claimed the title of the world’s wealthiest for three days when his net worth eclipsed that of Microsoft’s Bill Gates. Mr Son’s colossal fortune, however, proved to be mercurially evanescent, as it plummeted by 99% in the wake of the Dot Com crash, stripping him of the billionaire status. By late 2003, his wealth, predominately tied to Softbank shares, went down with the company, and many wrote this tech visionary off the Wall Street annals.
It has been two decades since the tech bubble deflation, and Masayoshi Son once again reclaims his position as Japan’s richest man. Forbes reported his net worth at $31.6 billion, ahead of Fast Retailing chairman Tadashi Yanai whose family fortune stood at $31.3 billion as of Friday, Sep 18, 2020. It certainly has been a thrilling ride for Softbank shareholders over the past few weeks, as a string of irregular trading activities linked to Mr Son were divulged by the Financial Times who exposed Softbank as the NASDAQ whale - an institutional investor who has been propping the market up with highly leveraged bets. This surely unnerved many and sent Softbank shares sharply lower on the heel of the report; however, it is quickly mitigated by the welcome news of the firm’s successful sale of Arm holdings to Nvidia, a transaction worth $40 billion.
Undoubtedly, Mr Son is successful by any Wall Street’s measures. What more interesting is his path to success. In an interview with David Rubenstein, Mr Son recounted the time when he was a student in the US. He mentioned that all he wanted was to consistently make $10,000 a month and that he earmarked 5 minutes every day to mull the ways he could realize this dream. One day it dawned upon him that only through invention can he bring to fruition his ambition to be rich. It was not long until he managed to deliver on that epiphany with his first breakthrough, a sale of electronic dictionary business to Sharp, which made him a multi-millionaire.
Nevertheless, Mr Son is better known nowadays for his aggressive bets on the future of tech startups. His $100 billion Vision Fund backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investments provided the much-needed equity for many loss-making tech companies including Uber, WeWork and Slack. The implosion of WeWork and its subsequent valuation writedown after a failed IPO earlier this year reminded shareholders that Mr Son’s approach is high risk-high return; just that the handsome return he envisioned is unlikely to be apparent soon. Compounding the hitherto perception of Softbank as a high-risk bet is the fact that Mr Yanai chose to step down from its board after 18 years, a move indicative of the billionaire’s disapproval of Mr Son’s apparently precarious business practice. However, these headwinds seem insufficient to sap investors’ confidence in Mr Son. The old adage that says ‘a captain goes down with the ship’ befits the current situation. Only time can tell whether Mr Son can steer this ship to glory in the uncharted water that Softbank sets sail.
Masayoshi Son, SoftBank CEO, is now Japan's richest person, once again.
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