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Telco/Internet specialist

Kirk Boodry

Redex Research

Equity Bottom-Up

The last three quarters have largely been defined by the potential for Vision Fund portfolio companies to go public but a new theme is emerging as Softbank starts to take money off the table. There was much less discussion of liquidity events but more on asset sales including partial sales of <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/uber-technologies-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:430:1" rel="noopener">Uber (UBER US)</a> , <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/ke-holdings-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:29213:1" rel="noopener">KE Holdings Inc (BEKE US)</a> , <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/doordash-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:28881:1" rel="noopener">DoorDash Inc (DASH US)</a> , Guardant Health and Northstar public equities in the quarter. With a further sale of Uber shares this month, that theme probably picks up steam as the quarter goes on, particularly if <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/coupang" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:28425:1" rel="noopener">Coupang (CPNG US)</a>  can hold its value into September when lockups expire.Proceeds from these sales will be used to fund Vision Fund 2 commitments, which will get a further boost from Masa/management investing their own money alongside. That would seem to flag corporate governance concerns but as Masa already has an economic stake in Northstar and earlier plans for a management investment in VF1 passed board muster, this probably does not impact sentiment very much.There is some modest dissonance in the results as Softbank said that it was not announcing a buyback because it was not selling assets like it did last year. Apparently that definition excludes investments like the ones above although Masa did tease that they thought about share buybacks every day because of the depth of the holding company discount. That could just be noise as there is no upside in ruling out buybacks entirely but there is precedent as management has been incentivized to act in the past when discounts reached extreme levels. That used to be around 50% (we are at c. 46% now) but last year’s 67%+ discount may have reset the bar on where shares are too cheap.

The last three quarters have largely been defined by the potential for Vision Fund portfolio companies to go public but a new theme is emerging as Softbank starts to take money off the table. There was much less discussion of liquidity events but more on asset sales including partial sales of Uber (UBER US) , KE Holdings Inc (BEKE US) , DoorDash Inc (DASH US) , Guardant Health and Northstar public equities in the quarter. With a further sale of Uber shares this month, that theme probably picks up steam as the quarter goes on, particularly if Coupang (CPNG US)  can hold its value into September when lockups expire.Proceeds from these sales will be used to fund Vision Fund 2 commitments, which will get a further boost from Masa/management investing their own money alongside. That would seem to flag corporate governance concerns but as Masa already has an economic stake in Northstar and earlier plans for a management investment in VF1 passed board muster, this probably does not impact sentiment very much.There is some modest dissonance in the results as Softbank said that it was not announcing a buyback because it was not selling assets like it did last year. Apparently that definition excludes investments like the ones above although Masa did tease that they thought about share buybacks every day because of the depth of the holding company discount. That could just be noise as there is no upside in ruling out buybacks entirely but there is precedent as management has been incentivized to act in the past when discounts reached extreme levels. That used to be around 50% (we are at c. 46% now) but last year’s 67%+ discount may have reset the bar on where shares are too cheap.

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