Following public commitments from Masayoshi Son to decrease personnel at the world’s largest tech investor, SoftBank Group Corp. is going to slash at least 20% of staff at its loss-making Vision Fund division, according to people familiar with the situation.
The Tokyo-based company will eliminate at least 100 jobs, and it may announce the layoffs as early as this month, according to the sources, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. According to the people, the operations in the UK, US, and China, which employ the most people, will see the majority of the cuts. About 500 people worked for the Vision Fund unit, including workers from the Latin American funds.
Son, the self-made billionaire creator of the company, had previously stated in August that he planned to significantly reduce costs at both his conglomerate and the investment arm of Vision Fund following a record $23 billion loss. The value of portfolio firms, including South Korea’s Coupang Inc. and DoorDash Inc., fell precipitously, which caused the majority of the losses. Due to the weakened yen, SoftBank also disclosed a $6 billion foreign exchange loss.