According to Bloomberg, SoftBank’s Vision Fund division is preparing for significant layoffs and hopes to reduce its workforce by up to 30% globally.
According to insider sources cited by the magazine, this will have an impact on 150 people. Internally, SoftBank planned to reduce its headcount by 20%, but management wanted a 50% decrease.
The targeted regional offices were not made public because a spokesman for the Vision Fund failed to respond to Bloomberg’s questions.
Masayoshi Son, the founder of SoftBank, announced in August that he would be pursuing cost-cutting measures across the organization after it posted losses of US $23 billion for the second quarter of 2022. US $17.3 billion of such sum was credited to the company’s Vision Funds.
To generate money for its second Vision Fund, which has had problems attracting outside interests, the Japanese conglomerate has also moved to sell chunks of its holding in Chinese digital behemoth Alibaba.
Despite the underwhelming results of the first two funds, SoftBank may use its own capital to start a third Vision Fund.
