, Columnist
Masa Is Blinded by His Own Vision
SoftBank needs to think a little more short term.
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SoftBank Group Corp.'s management is frustrated by the discount at which it trades, and that may be a key reason why the Japanese company has decided to spin off its domestic telco.
Wednesday's earnings announcement -- operating profit missed estimates -- shows just why equity investors think Masayoshi Son's Tokyo-listed flagship is worth far less than the sum of its parts. Its myriad holdings -- which include a stake in Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., U.S. phone operator Sprint Corp., and Yahoo Japan Corp. -- tally to at least $180 billion, while its shares trade at half that, Bloomberg's Pavel Alpeyev wrote in an incisive look at the phenomenon.