SoftBank Group’s shares plunged as much as 10% in the early trading session on Wednesday following news that the company had offloaded its complete holding in U.S. semiconductor leader Nvidia for $5.83 billion.
According to a source cited by CNBC, proceeds from this sale are earmarked to support SoftBank’s substantial $22.5 billion investment in OpenAI, the artificial intelligence firm behind ChatGPT.
At 9:59 local time in Japan, the share was last traded at JPY21,265 per share, down 6.30%.
SoftBank Group announced Tuesday that it has divested its entire holding in U.S. chipmaker Nvidia, raising $5.83 billion from the sale of 32.1 million shares in October. The Japanese conglomerate also disclosed it had pared back its position in T-Mobile, selling part of its stake for $9.17 billion, according to its latest earnings statement.
In the fiscal second quarter, SoftBank reported a profit of JPY 2.502 trillion, far outpacing the JPY 206.89 billion forecast by LSEG consensus estimates and surpassing the JPY 1.18 trillion profit a year earlier. Quarterly revenue stood at JPY 1.92 trillion, slightly above the JPY 1.9 trillion estimate.
SoftBank’s aggressive expansion into artificial intelligence, with sizable investments in companies such as OpenAI and PayPay, drove a $19 billion profit in its Vision Fund segment, following a $4.8 billion gain in the previous three-month period and accounting for various investment and non-investment factors.
The company is doubling down on AI, with investments and acquisitions aimed at enhancing its role in robotics and artificial super intelligence (ASI).
