Shares of SoftBank Group, a multinational holding company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, closed at a record high in Asian trading Tuesday as investors celebrated the recovery in the firm’s technology portfolio.
Shares in SoftBank, a heavily-weighted component of Japan’s Nikkei 225 index which is trading at 30-year highs, closed up 4% at 10,420 yen, above the record 10,111 yen reached in February 2000 at the height of the dot-com bubble.
Underpinned by buybacks and with retail investors buying its shares and junk bonds, SoftBank’s shares have been supported by a growing number of portfolio companies listing in ebullient markets.
The Japanese conglomerate’s comeback, during which its shares have climbed almost 300% from lows hit in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic roiled its portfolio, have led to celebration among the company’s supporters.
Softbank Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Masayoshi Son’s own social media posts are centred on aphorisms, favouring quarterly presentations over Twitter to transmit his message, in contrast to the memes that have made Tesla CEO Elon Musk a retail investor favourite.
SoftBank’s climbing share price has pushed its market cap above $200 billion U.S., in marked contrast to a year earlier when it slipped behind Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE) to third place in the Nikkei index.
In the latest effort by a SoftBank-backed firm to tap markets seeing record equity raising, South Korean e-commerce firm Coupang last week filed to list in the United States and is aiming for a $50 billion valuation.
