The scale and influence of Japan’s Softbank has long given it the power to move markets. The bank’s $100 billion Vision Fund, backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, invested in tech unicorns like Uber and WeWork and transformed Silicon Valley. But the company’s outsize sway has now landed it in hot water; Softbank stands to lose at least $1.5 billion in collapsed fintech company Greensill Capital, its Vision Fund 2 is struggling to raise outside funding, and its trading arm is believed to have made a blizzard of high-risk investments last year that rattled Wall Street and called into question the bank’s long-term strategy. Softbank’s founder, Masayoshi Son, has bounced back before, having lost $75 billion when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. But for some investors, the bloom is off the rose.
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