SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son proposes US-Japan sovereign wealth fund: Report

SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has proposed setting up a United States-Japan joint sovereign wealth fund, to make big ticket investments in infra and tech, Financial Times reported citing three sources.

While the plan has been discussed with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, it has not been formally proposed by Mosayoshi Son, the report added.

Masayoshi Son's brainchild: What we know so far

• “The joint fund would likely need about $300 billion in initial capital, with significant leverage, to be effective,” one source told the FT. 
• The report added that the SWF would be jointly owned and run by the US Treasury and Japan’s finance ministry. 
• The US Treasury and Japan’s finance ministry would also each hold a significant stake in the joint fund. 
• The fund could also be opened to limited partner investors, potentially offering retail investors in Japan and the US a chance to participate.

Scott Bessent on lookout for revenue streams

According to a the report, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been looking for revenue streams for the department, and is keen on sources that would not require hiking taxes.

Masayoshi Son's proposal this comes at an opportune time and could potentially provide a solution, a source told FT.

A Treasury spokesperson and Softbank declined to comment to the FT.

SoftBank's profit soars 124% 

SoftBank Group Corp.’s profit soared 124 per cent on valuations of tech startups such as ByteDance and OpenAI.

SoftBank reported net income of ¥517.18 billion ($3.5 billion) in its fiscal fourth quarter. That was helped by the Vision Fund, which swung to a profit of ¥26.1 billion thanks to gains in investees such as ByteDance and China’s Didi Global Inc.

For the year ended March, SoftBank earned a ¥1.15 trillion net income, its first profit in four years after springing back from a loss of about ¥228 billion in the previous year.

(With inputs from Bloomberg)