SoftBank Group Corp. has invested about $3.9 billion (¥412 billion) into 25 of the world’s largest technology companies including Amazon.com Inc., Tesla Inc., Netflix Inc. and Alphabet Inc.
The conglomerate owned $1.04 billion of Amazon stock, its biggest investment, a $475 million stake in Alphabet, $248.6 million of Adobe Inc. and $189 million of Netflix, the Tokyo-based company said in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dated Aug. 17. Its stake in Tesla was worth $122.9 million as of June 30, it said.
SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son is expanding the company’s investment activities from private startups to publicly traded equities at a time the biggest technology stocks are near record highs. He unveiled a new asset management arm on an earnings call last week, saying it’s part of a broader bet on transformative technologies. The company is targeting investments of more than $10 billion in public stocks, according to people familiar with the initiative.