Softbank Group Corp

Thank you very much for waiting, everyone. Now, we would like to start the SoftBank Group Co-op Earnings Results Briefing for the three-month period, ended June 30, 2023. First of all, I would like to introduce today's participants. From left, we have Yoshimitsu Goto, Board Director, and CFO. Kazuko Kimiwada, Senior Vice President and Head of Accounting Unit. Navneet Govo, CFO, ASP Investment Advisors and CFO, Member of Executive Committee, ASP Global Advisors. Today's briefing is live broadcast over the internet. Now I would like to invite Mr. Goto, board director and CFO, to present you the earnings results and business overview. Mr. Goto, please. Thank you very much for your attendance for today's meeting. My name is Goto, a CFO of Softbank Group Corp. So I would like to present you the earnings results for the first quarter. First of all, I would like to touch on the market status to begin with. As an investment company, What we need to be keen on is the market environments and also the economical environments. At the same time, we also need to see the geopolitical situations, global situations. Those kind of thing is something that we always need to be keen. And starting for this April to June period, we've been very careful to watch all those important factors. At the previous earnings announcement, I said market is showing the recovering trend. sign but at the same time also there are still several considerations which we do not see the clear solutions for so that we do need to still keep on being very alert and careful but at the same time also we would like to take a lead before all the movements occur but at the same time to be selectively that we would like to consider the investment activities and looking at the equity market in the last three months actually showing a very good trend. And as you see on the graph, on the top of this graph is Thomson Reuters Venture Capital Index. So private equities KPI is also showing a very good trend in the past three months. at the same time that the public securities is also showing a good sign too in the Golden Dragon China, the Chinese markets, KPI. Looking at the January to March, we were a bit concerned, but now for the April to June period, showing a good recovery trend. But when you go a little bit more deeper, especially the public securities in the United States. We believe Magnificent Seven, so-called, which used to be called GAFA, those large logos, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, those seven major companies, large companies, share price is actually becoming a big driver for the recovery of the market. Of course, there are some other positive factors as well for this recovery. And for us, looking at the public securities movement in the past three months, actually, the number has been showing very positively. NASDAQ, compared with NASDAQ, we believe that our trend is becoming very similar to NASDAQ these days. And looking at the current status of the market and the Vision Fund progress, Looking at the past few periods, actually, we returned to profit for the first time in six quarters. This is one of the highlights for these earnings, I believe. This is the Vision Fund's standalone basis, so it's not a consolidated base, so that it's positive figures showing here on your right, 975. As a result, to the cumulative gain loss on investments. This again is the first turnaround in six quarters. So now you see that the trend has turned around. So based on this trend, we also like to make a good balance in between gas and brake for the reinvestment activities. So, April to June quarter, visual fund investments and also investment from SVG in total it was about 1.8 billion US dollars of the investments has been executed since we made an announcement on shifting to offense mode. Last year, the whole year was almost stopped in terms of investing. So when you look at the three-year trend, we've been carefully carefully restarting our investment activities. I hope you get that kind of sensitivity here that we are carefully and slowly moving back to the investment activities. The investments that we have done so far has been selectively considered and at the same time keep focusing on the AI trend and for the future growth that we would like to start having a good relationship with those companies for the futures of the group. Back in June, when we had a shareholders meeting, our chairman, CEO Masa, came back to the stage and talked about shifting to offense mode. I believe we are actually shifting to the offense mode but at the same time from CFO's point of view we would like to be carefully and selectively when it comes to shifting the offense mode our baseball team Hawks also needs to be back to offense mode we've been having a bit of difficult games and challenging games these days but Baseball as well as the business needs to shift towards offense mode after we had a very challenging period in the past. With those understanding, let me share with you the consolidated results. First quarter consolidated results, as you see, net sales, as we are the investment holding company, so that the 1.53 billion, more importantly, net income minus 477 billion yen. And also, the loss on investments, when you see the change on your right, 2.6 trillion of the net income improvements, but the loss on investments has improved by 2.1. And this is compared to the market trend recovery. Maybe we should be a little bit better than these numbers, but there are some reasons behind for those. and also the gain and loss on investments. This is the vision fund number. So this has been needed for the consolidated base. So there are several companies, Arm and PayPay, these has been netted off from this number's point of view, but still that they are coming back to almost, back to the originals. And with that gain, and loss on investments, minus 699 billion yen. This is materially improved compared to the previous year, but when you look at the breakdown, Out of the 699 billion yen, of which 550 is due to the loss on Alibaba due to lower share price, I want you to recall that this monetization of Baribaba share has already been completed. However, we still keep on holding our shares. And because we have done the derivative transaction, which has already completed, this is kind of a forward transaction. Therefore, when share price goes down, derivative point of view, it is positive. So this derivative gain related to the shares is shown on the dotted line. 769 billion is the derivative gain. Therefore, the accounting item-wise, it's different, so that this still remains as a negative for the gain and loss on investments. But Alibaba, 200 billion yen is positive after net. So looking at the gain and loss on investments, actually, effectively we can say that our status was positive that's something that the real status of the company and here is the income before income tax by segment here the showing the performance of the income before income tax so investment business of holding companies It's still minus 394. Change wise, difference is 803. And the Vision Fund is contributing 2.4 trillion yen, positively. And consolidated base, it was minus 176 billion yen. And net income, 477.6 billion, as I mentioned earlier in the previous page. And here, I want you to see the breakdown of that. And as a matter of fact, because of the weak yen, there are 464.6 billion loss on foreign exchange. So this as well, should be regarded in the gain and loss on investments. But here in net income, the Forex impact has been shown here. So this is actually comes up to the P&L. So as an investment holding company, weak yen, whether this is good things or bad things actually this is very good which I will cover that later pages so as a result net income although that this is minus 477 billion however the insight or the breakdown is coming from the P&L or negative from the Forex again that I believe that effectively is almost break even that's the kind of a real picture of SoftBank Group

There are two very important key indicators for us as an investment company, net asset value, or NAV, loan-to-value, or LTV, and cash position. Compared to the end of March this year, in all indicators, we have seen improvements For example, NAV increased from 14.1 to 15.5, and LTV, 11 to 8% cash position, almost 6 trillion yen. So all three indicators improved. So we can be proud of saying that we are in a good position in terms of our financial basis. This slide shows a change in NAV. Main driver is Forex. When yen is weaker, the value of asset goes up. So it's not a bad thing. Every quarter, we have announced financial results. And the share price, it says plus 0.4, which has been negative for a long time. And this term, we have seen the positive number of share price for the first time for a long time. Impact of Forex in terms of P&L, minus 0.5 trillion yen impact. But if you analyze further, why it's negative? Because borrowing in foreign exchange denominated increases in trillions of yen. And borrowing in foreign denominated currency, do we have a lot or not? For example, a foreign currency denominated bond is, of course, borrowing in foreign currency. And we have group companies. we do exit, we do recoup, and when we get contributions from group companies, there are a lot of intercompany loans in foreign denominated currency. That's why we see the negative number because borrowing in foreign currency denominated, the value went down when yen is weaker. And in terms of net asset value, it has a positive impact of 1.3 trillion yen. So again, weaker yen is good for us as an investment company. And this slide shows NAV per share and share price. This is also one of the important aspects that we should look at. And investors and analysts often say, or often use the term, SoftBank discount. And NAV per share, if you look at that, Our share prices are very weak or cheap because of the discount people often say. As of end of March, the discount was 46%. But at this moment, thanks to increased share price and more than the increase of assets. So at the moment, we are looking at 36% of discount. So discount has improved significantly. to what extent we should have it improved of course there are a lot of discussions and comparison pre-tax from cash tax perspective in theory it should not be zero but for investors we want to make efforts technically and essentially to improve this discount status. This slide shows equity value of holdings. The highlight here is Alibaba monetization, which we completed. And if you look at dark blue second from the bottom, 3.7 in Q1 FI 2023, which indicates ARM value. So, steadily, ARM has been adding value to its business. So, all in all, equity value of holdings was 16.9 in the quarter. So it has been decreasing for a long time, but now we are beginning to see the turnaround. Since 1998, this graph shows a trend of net asset value. I joined SoftBank in 2000, so I have been in SoftBank for almost the whole time of this time horizon. And again, we are looking at upward trend this quarter and last quarter. Considering possible IPO of Arm, we are expecting this to improve further and increase further. This slide shows trends of loan-to-value. Looking back the history, currently 8% and this is the lowest in our history. Loan-to-value is low means we are safe. Is it good or bad? Well, people may say that you're not doing your job. You are too safe. But as an investment company, taking into account of our stance change from defense to offense, loan to value. Of course, we have a strong rule of financial policy. We want to make sure that we operate our business in a safe, disciplined manner. And to what extent we should allow loan to values fluctuation. There's no correct answer. We keep saying 25% because 25%, don't you think that 25% is safe from just a traditional perspective? Since we became an investment company, loan-to-value average for the last four years was 15%. And looking forward, we make sure that we are running the business in a very safe manner from LTV perspective. Now, cash position. We believe that we have highest amount of cash position in our history, almost 6 trillion yen. So those are key indicators. And also, I touched upon P&L and balance sheet and SoftBank Vision Fund. In the first quarter, total Gain on investment was $1 billion. We have three boxes, if you will, in terms of Vision Fund. Vision Fund 1, which started first, and Vision Fund 2, which is ongoing. Vision Fund 1, investment was already completed, and Datum Funds and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 are still making investment. SoftBank Vision Fund 1, we saw $1 billion positive. Vision Fund 2 still negative, but all in all, combined $1 billion of gain on investment. Positive number for the first time in six quarters. For Vision Fund 1, against about $90 billion of investment cost, return $102 billion. As you can see, orange part, which is exited, has been getting bigger and bigger. They have some challenging time, but they're still making sure that they get returns. SoftBank Vision Fund will not only invest in public company, but also private companies as well, which include Arm. When Arm is listed, and when its valuation is appreciated by the market, I believe that ARM will contribute to Vision Fund 1 a lot. There are a lot of companies that can be listed in a pipeline, and also we will support Vision Fund and monitor Vision Fund 1 to make sure that the investment is surely monetized. Vision Fund 2, which started investment about three years ago, It's been going through very challenging market conditions. Against 52 billion of investment cost return, it was only 33 billion. But this fund is still young. And going forward, Vision Fund 2 will take a lead in future investments and We will keep watching fund performance to improve their operations. And this slide shows value changes in portfolio, which I'm sure you're familiar with. Whether portfolio companies gained or lost their values. Left-hand side shows the status three months ago, cumulatively. Unfortunately, however, the red pie, which lost value, was 346 companies. The number has been getting bigger and bigger from 100, 200, and 346 as of March 31st. So the portfolio has been deteriorating. But if you look at the right-hand side, slightly, the number of companies lost their value got smaller from 346 to 343, and the companies who lost, excuse me, gained value, the number increased from 101 to 112, slightly increased. Again, this is cumulative number. And if you look back further, On the left-hand side, compared to the term from October through December, how the portfolio changed. 190 companies lost values and 88 companies gained values. We saw a sign of improvement in the quarter from January through March, but if you look at the right-hand side, the number of companies gained a value reached 150, and the company that lost value improved from 192 to 116. So, again, we can say that we are beginning to see the turn of the trend. We will keep monitoring Vision Fund against a backdrop of challenging market conditions, and we can't be complacent, but for those portfolio companies, we are looking at a positive change, which I want to highlight here today. In quarter one, invested amount was 0.9 billion in terms of Vision Fund. And Vision, excuse me, SoftBank's standard investment was 0.9, so total 1.8. So slightly, we started accelerating investment.

Vision Fund has close to 500 portfolio companies and we would like to take an advantage of this network for our group management and also synergy, positive synergy between those companies is also important. Navneet here is also making an effort to connect and arrange those portfolio companies each other. Sozo Connect is one of the events that gather the portfolio companies to networking and having a dialogue between those companies. Also inviting investment bankers or our members to study the good part about each other that has been held sometimes during the COVID period it has done in over Zoom also after then that have been held at Paris or Japan and so on or India And at the same time, we would like to encourage those portfolio companies to start entering into Japanese market and we actually support those activities. Here as you see that we've been enhancing ecosystem for them to enter into Japanese market already 50 portfolios start operating in Japanese market. Of course, this is just the beginning. We would like to see and expect a bigger success of such an activity and provide business opportunities to Japanese companies inside and also outside Softman Group, including Softman KK, which is the domestic telecom operator, but at the same time, they can be the big agent for the portfolio companies who are coming into Japanese markets. So SoftBank KK has been playing a good role to kind of assist those companies to come into our market. Here shows the AI technology mapping that I would like to touch on a little bit as we invest And also shifting to offense mode, because we would like to kind of catch up the opportunities here. Of course, the Vision Fund has started investing about six years ago. And actually, since then, we've been very much focusing on AI. These days, we see a very good trend in the popularities of the generative AI and very much a trend. But generative AI is only one component of the overall AI. But there are other AI technologies, such as the natural language processing, deep learning, machine learning, and so on. I believe that we can break down into about 10 segments or 10 sectors for the AI technology here that I show as one examples of such AI technology use cases, starting from frontier tech to enterprise consumer and so on. So logistics, fintechs also included in here, and edtech is also one of the examples. And you see that the example of Investees, for details of such companies. If you need to understand more, please contact Navneet here. But the Vision Fund has been already start investing or start looking into not only generative AI, but variety, wide range of AI technology and being very selective to put the money into such companies. Next is... I would like to touch on a little bit about here. I want to make a comment, however, because they are preparing for IPO, so I cannot really say anything. That's a comment I can say about. I'm sorry about that. But for revenue, you see the numbers, $641 million. So year on year, a slight decrease, so short-term period. semiconductor industry is on a little bit of a down cycle but if you see the past three years the annual growth rate or the three-year CAGR is 14 percent and also the value of this company actually that the real picture is going to be seen going forward. So that with the AI trend, they are the one that the designing chip and they have a very great track record for such businesses. And we believe that they will be evaluated in many areas, many sectors. I cannot touch on much of the value that the legal has been told me, telling me that very strictly that I should not be talking too much about here so that I like to stop here. But what I can say is that their area that they are covering is even more expanding. So not only ARM that they're working on chip, of course, that Intel used to design and produce, but ARM actually... showing their capabilities starting from the mobile device that they are having a great deal of market shares and many people utilize such mobile device smartphone to tablets that it's been used inside and those chip are very much close to arm designed chip and when it comes to cloud compute automotive compared to five years ago that the chip for the cloud computer automobile is different. It's been changed automotive itself that it's been evolving in autonomous driving and so on. Cloud compute has also changed because generative AI belongs to this area so that the arms capability can be fully taken in many, many more areas. So in our life, IoT is the one that we can see, smart camera, all the facial recognitions, those is also done with ARM's latest edge technology chip. So I believe that their chip is highly evaluated from the sense as everywhere that ARM has been used. And one announcement that was done in May 2023 by ARM is the computing platform for mobile. And ARM's latest edge technology CPU has been built in, so for example in gaming. immersive gaming experience which you have ever experienced before, that kind of technology has been also shared since then. And the latest GPU is also mounted, therefore... something that close to your life technology has been used by the ARM technology. And the next is the Nvidia's announcement that they have announced the ARM-based supercomputer recently back in May. 2023, and that they have adapted the latest chip. And through this supercomputer, we believe that medical and scientific research is going to be making good progress, and also Europe's most energy-efficient systems, according to NVIDIA. So this is also a great event that we have seen. ARM's IPO plan is going very smoothly, and today I am not going to share the financial status or business progress of ARM from me, but once public filing is made, then I believe some information is going to be available so that I would like you to wait for that. And here it's titled AI Reshapes the Industrial Landscape because there are some companies that we have invested in April to June quarter. And there are three companies that I would like to share with you today as an example. Basically it's logistic related and because AI is revolutionizing every industry and actually internet, is basically the advertisement model from the business point of view. But advertising revenue is 0.3 trillion, but 1.8 trillion for logistics. So it's quite a difference. of the logistic market size as a percentage of GDP in United States. In Japan, a bit smaller size, but 1% advertisement, but 9% logistics. So it's quite similar to United States. And the AI actually redefine, so they have a capability of redefining all the sectors industry so that we believe the logistics can be redefined in many aspect. And we've been making some investment based on that hypothesis. And we've been... We invested in those three companies.

Symbotic, which was already invested by Vision Fund, And what we did was to establish a JV with SBG's investment commitment of $3.2 billion and acquired additional 3% interest for $500 million in July 2023. Also, we acquired all shares of Berkshire Grey. Vision Fund actually had interest of about 28% of this company, and we decided to privatize by acquiring all shares. And Teleexistence, which is a Japanese company, we acquired a share through the 23-billion-yen round in March to June 2023. First, symbiotic. Let me briefly share with you what they do. Symbaltic provides warehouse automation platform for retailers and distributors. Let me share with you a video clip.

Picks up cases from the bottom to safely handle a larger range of products, empowering the system to handle goods in their original packaging. This eliminates the transfer of product to and from trays or totes, commonly found in alternative systems. Orchestrated by AI-powered software and safety systems, the bots travel autonomously at industry-leading speeds up to 25 miles per hour. The autonomous bots require no charging downtime. Instead, bots receive quick-burst charges via ultracapacitors as they load or unload products from the system's lifts. Dual robotic arms work together to build pallets three to four times faster than other systems. Symbotic-built pallets are tailored to the layout of each store, reducing the need for backroom storage and sorting. The robots build ultra-tall, stable, mixed-skew pallets with 50% greater density on average than human-built pallets. It enables greater capacity and speed while reducing cost. Rather than pushing inventory to the next node in the supply chain, the system pulls inventory through based on demand, creating a powerful competitive advantage for Symbiotic clients.

So there was a Symbiotic and they've got great growth potential and They ran at 40 kilometer per hour. I think in a warehouse, there's a regression down to four kilometer per hour because of the safety concern. But if there's none, no person at all in the warehouse, the robot or cars can run as fast as 40 kilometer per hour. So that should help improving efficiency. of the warehouse. Together with Symbotic, we announced to establish a joint venture called Greenbox Systems so that we can provide warehouse as a service to varieties of customers. Next, Berkshire Grey. We have had a relationship with them for some time. And for logistic providers, they provide easy fulfillment, replenishment system, and robot solution, and so forth. There are a lot of competitors, actually. We found value in the technology as well as the senior management team. And TELEXISTENCE is one of the three companies that we invested in recently. They develop and deploy remote control technology and AI robots. In fact, they have signed big deals with major convenience stores in Japan. They are good at developing AI-based robots and their growth potential, again, is something that we are excited about because it's so relevant to your everyday life. Now let me talk about financial strategy. No change at all. No matter how fast or slow to resume investment, we want to make sure that we adhere to our financial policy. And this is the commitment we have made and we still have. and also financial management adaptable to both defense and offense is another pillar of the strategy. Our financial policy includes maintaining LTV below 25% in normal times, maintaining at least two-year worth of bond redemption in cash. I think we have six-year worth of bond redemption in cash, actually. maybe too much, but again, we need to make sure that we have plenty of cash position for bond redemption. Bond market may get shut down immediately, When the bond market or CP markets closed, companies that rely too much on those markets may go bankrupt immediately. There are a lot of risky or dangerous companies in Japan. We, as an investment company, may be one of those companies if we fail to operate properly. bond maturity, three year or five year or seven year. Let's say there are five year bonds and when maturity comes, should we return to you in cash or would you like us to give you similar financial instruments? We want to ask those questions to those investors. For that, we need to have plenty of cash in our hands and sometimes we get criticized and that criticism is wrong and once you face market risks for investors it's important to have options So again, running a business safely is something that we need to keep doing. And also we want to secure recurring distributions and dividend income from SVF and other subsidiaries. Again, offense and defense, we want to be flexible in running our financial operations. If you look at the top right, investment in the information revolution while maintaining financial stability, we don't want to miss opportunities. We are information revolutionists, if you will. We need to take a lead in the global environment. And necessary investment activities are something that we will do. But at the same time, we have a very stable, safe financial operations. Capital allocation and return to shareholders are something that our investors are interested in. Financial improvement is something that credit investor may be interested in and new investment is needed for company's growth and a shareholder's return is important for investors and financial policy is also important We made a share buyback worth 4.5 trillion yen recently. We will do that, but the timing and how much give us some flexibility, and we work on improving our finances, and we make sure we have a very strong financial policy to meet promises that we have with credit investors. Last but not the least, let me talk about taxes. I think I have never talked about tax in public forum like this before. And there is some misconception that SoftBank does not pay tax. In fact, some media has such misconception. Look at those numbers. In fact, we have paid a lot of taxes. On the consolidated basis, from FY 2018 through 2022, if you look at the top right, 2.6 trillion. So for five years, we have paid 2.6 trillion yen. usually or every year we have paid 500 billion yen about year on year and telecom operators pay tax yahoo pays the tax but holding company does not pay tax again that's misconception If you look at somewhere in the middle, in FY2022, Japan, 469.7, that's the tax that we paid in Japan, including operating company's tax, 255 billion. Not only tax paid by operating companies like SoftBank and Yahoo, SPG and intermediate holding companies paid tax as well. Through holding companies, we have made a lot of investments. SBG stand-alone and 100 subsidiaries controlled by us. And if those 100% wholly owned companies were sold, then those wholly owned companies paid the tax. So, again, effectively, SoftBank Group has paid 214 billion in FY 2022 overseas Of course, we paid 56 billion in FY 2022 as an investment vehicle. So again, in Japan as well as overseas, we as an investment holding company paid taxes. Just for your reference, top 10 consolidated corporate income tax payments I wish a media had created a chart like this, but we have done on behalf of them. Toyota Motor, of course, they paid a lot of taxes, and NTT. And we are actually not far from NTT. So again, we work for the company, and we work for the country. We pay tax. So that's something that we'd like you to pay attention to as well. So that's all for myself. And thank you very much. And we look forward to hearing from you in question and answer session. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we would like to move on to Q&A session. First, we would like to take questions from the floor. Please wait for the microphone and start with your name and affiliation. For those who are on Zoom, please, we ask that you turn off all the other live webcasts to prevent any echoing. Please press raise hand button and wait for your name to be called. If you'd like to withdraw your questions, please press lower hand button. We would like to take up to two questions per person so that we can take questions from as many people as possible. Also, if you are on the Zoom in Japanese, please ask questions in Japanese. Now we are starting from the floor. If you have any questions, please raise your hand. So first row person that I would like to take this person's question first. My name is from newspaper. I have two questions, please. First, Masa said in the AGM talking about shifting to offense mode. So at the AGM, He is now, I believe, changing his face from investor's face to the operator's face, so semiconductors, robotics, and so on. Other than investment, what kind of activities that Masa does, or what do you think as an activity for the turning around or the shifting to the offense mode? Masa, as for Masa, Is he an investor? I believe he is an entrepreneur. He is the founder of SoftBank. And he is always keeping his entrepreneurship in his mind. But once you start business, you also need to do the operation. And you have to do the operation, otherwise then there will be many stakeholders. You will have accountabilities. You have to keep the governance and compliance for the business. And he's saying that it's right-hand side of brain and left-hand side of brain. And that is the operation is actually the left-hand side brain work. But actually, the enhancement of the body of the SoftBank group, I believe that he needs to use his right-hand side of the brain. And that contributes most for the growth of the business. And he believes in that, and we think that way too. So, hearing your question, From investor to business person, you may see him in that way. I understand what you mean in the past few months, in the past one year or so. And also his comments or explanations in AGM looks like so, I understand. But what he is doing, he's very much focused and dedicated into AI business. What can we do? What should he do? That's something that he's thinking around the clock, 24-7, and we are having meetings almost every day, and we are hearing his energy out from his body, and that's a tremendous energy that he is generating here. So... of course, at the investing activities and also start the business by setting a company. Those kind of things can be one of the things that he may consider, but many things that can be done, but the very root of himself is the entrepreneurship, I believe. And based on the entrepreneurship that he would like to access to the many areas, and we are the operating side, we are the operating team, that we would like to kind of bring it down to the business based on his ideas and the goal and crystallize the value. That's a bit of big picture answers, but that's the answer for your first question. And my next question is the interest rate hike that I would like to ask you about. Rate hike in the raising market or the situation may have changed. In the previous earnings, you also mentioned that the rate from the floating to fixed, that you've been already addressing the rate hike. But even in the fixed rate, but when you refinance the debt or the payments of the coupons, how do you addressing the current status of the rate hike? Actually, these days rate hike, is not the reason that we are changing from floating to fixed, for example, regardless of good or bad. In the past 20 years, we've been enjoying the very lowest rate so far. And me, for example, 1987, I became a banker and started as a business person in the bank. And it was 6.5% for the long prime rate. And the pension was 5.5% or to 6% because I joined a trust bank. So those are the numbers that I remember. And compared to that, the 20% in the past 20 years, this rate is almost nothing. So that... Changing to the floating rate, maybe we can take an advantage of 10 basis or the 20 basis, but that's not a financing activity because IRR, 30% is a business we are pursuing as a company. So we always try to take all the opportunities for the financing as much as possible. That's the kind of a way we are thinking for our financing activity as a result. When we see the rate hike, financial policy has actually aligned with this movement. We don't know for the future. Once that goes on and on, and then that there are some time where that we may see some decrease in the rate as well. And what we should do is something that we should consider when that time comes. But the 30 years to 50 years, that's a kind of a long term that we've been with this rate environment, and I don't believe that we need to rush at this moment. Weak yen, strong yen, that foreign exchange is a big concern, but we would like to pay close attention to that. But at the same time, whether we can finance whenever we want to finance, that I think I don't care. I don't consider much because we have confidence in our credit and the asset balance of the company and the status of such assets. I we believe that we will be able to raise when it is necessary. So you have a cash, fluent cash position so that you don't need to depend on the refinance of the debt. Is that what you mean? No, the bond market itself is functioning very well at this moment so that when the redemption timing comes, for example, domestic bonds, I believe we have a full access to the domestic market, bond market. For the foreign bonds, about a year ago, the financing cost was over 10%. In such a circumstance, we just need to change the raising market. In those cases, we just shift towards domestic and raising the domestic market. So that's the kind of operation that we can study. But the rate itself, because the things that we already raised, mainly are the fixed so that we don't need to see the change of the rate and going forward when the maturity comes and when new financing comes, then that's going to be using a new rate. So a little by little, we may having some impact from the rate hike, but the maturity is actually diversified over 10 years. So it's not that the big change will occur in one year or two year. When it comes to the global bonds, If the rate is high, we don't need to do the global bonds, but also need to see the deposit and the loan balance. We have almost six trillion yen cash, and 80% are managed under U.S. dollars. And then looking at the EO of U.S. dollars, actually is very high, and so that we'll be able to net out of those. So that considering that balance, I don't see any big issues for the management of such caches.

Thank you very much. Next question from the floor. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two, actually. First, about ARM and ARM IPO preparation is going well, you mentioned, but timing and NASDAQ or where anything, could you give us a little bit more color, please? Who... Only from Bloomberg. Sorry, I can't share. I'm not allowed to share more. Forgive me. But I don't think it's far away when you get more information.

Questions for Navneet about Vision Fund investment plans. May I ask how much money is left at Vision Fund 2 to spend? I see in the slide that it, there's a section in the slide it says total dry powder to invest in 19 billion plus. Could you clarify what this figure is? Thank you.

Yes, thank you for the question. So the $19 billion figure covers Vision Fund 1, Vision Fund 2, and the LATAM funds. For Vision Fund 2, the total commitments are $60 billion. And as you see in the acquisition cost is $51.5 billion. So we have over $8 billion of available capital in Vision Fund 2 to invest.

Thank you. And sorry, could you also elaborate maybe a little bit on the pace of investments going forward since you've started investing now? Thank you.

Sure. As Guto-san showed in one of his slides, the pace is definitely increasing given San-san's comments at the June shareholder meeting that we're going into offense. And you can see In the June quarter, we spent close to a billion dollars of investing in Vision Fund 2, so it's more than the prior quarters. But at the same time, the bar for investing is very high. There has to be investments that meet our targeted threshold, and they have to be companies that are focused on next-generation AI with high growth potential.

Thank you. Other questions? Then I'd like to take a question from the black jacket person, please, in the front row. My name is Yamaguchi from my newspaper. So back in May, SNP announced the downgrade on you, and can you give us any comments about that? And another question is about arm variation has been increasing, but how you compare with other peers? Why did you mark up the arm variation, please? Yes, the first question, arm variation, Sorry, the first question about the credit rating of the S&P. So that's up to rating agency to provide the rating index, but this time their highlight or the interpretation is different from what we understand and that has something that we do not agree, and that we've been keeping a dialogue with S&P. Simply put, asset, amongst the assets, or the asset diversification, they see S&P sees negatively if we have a ratio of 50% below for the public securities among our net assets, because we have monetized Alibaba share, and that became scarce. And cash, I thought, is safer than public securities. That's my question that I'm giving to them. And their asset, value, does not have a cash item. So I think there are many ways to understand the company. But we have about $6 trillion of the cash with us. So that... It's not that we have to, or we forced to sell the securities to put the money, but we just try to get safer by divesting the Chinese assets, for example. Therefore, that we believe this is something that we are not forced to anything, but just trying to avoid the risks. After the events of the downgrade, we've been keeping the communications and dialogue with the senior members of the agency. Next day of that announcement of downgrade, actually many of the credit analysts issued the reports and made the comments that they agree with our interpretation, which was a very good news or the good report, but we don't want to make any misunderstanding in between two parties so that we would like to keep the good dialogue with the company. And for your next question, the valuation of the arm.

So as Guta-san said, we cannot comment too much on ARM given the quiet period. But in terms of the ARM valuation, just like all of our portfolio companies, we look at a number of factors. We look at the multiples of comparable companies. So, the comparable companies to Arm, their multiples have expanded. And then, the performance of Arm. It has shown very strong top-line growth, as well as EBITDA performance. So, in light of that, we took a small markup on the Arm valuation in the June quarter.

Thank you very much. Any more questions from the floor? Oh, no, from Yomiuri newspaper. Going forward, what's your view, Goto-san? I understand your view in short term, but going forward? risk environment, and market trends, and also ARM IPO, which should come sooner rather than later. You indicated once ARM is listed, you expect increase in valuation. So again, all in all, what's your view going forward? As an investment company, for our stakeholders, we should do what we need to do for those stakeholders from that perspective. For example, an event of ARM IPO, if it takes place soon, and if everything goes smoothly and ARM values go up, and we have more room for investment. And with that capacity, how much we can invest in a safe manner, we should have more than such money. Of course, we need to fulfill our accountability. At the same time, we need to do execution. We need to look at the good side and bad side of environment. For example, Nikkei average is 32,000 yen which is comfortable for us but of course we need to keep watching how the stock market goes to make sure that we are ready for any contingencies. How much sensitivity should we have and how much safety net we should have? And then how much can we invest? We are going into a positive cycle and of course we want to keep having offensive mode, but also we need to be defensive as well for some time. At certain point, we may take a different stance, but for the time being, we don't think we should change our policy drastically.

Any other questions? Then would you like to take second row from the front, the gentleman, please? Matsuzawa from Mainichi Newspaper. the page 9 of financial report that I would like to have more color page 9 of financial report in the middle holding company a business loss second column T mobile share you have an a right to purchase the shares and the loss is 1053. You have a right to purchase in free but you have loss recording here and that's derivative I understand but can you give us a little bit more color on this? Yes. So for this option is every quarter we value under fair value basis and It's been accumulated already. So simply put, compared to the previous quarter, this quarter, share price has declined. As a result, valuations has decreased. The value has decreased, sorry. options rights is, the condition is $150 over VWAP of 45 days. So once that you see the decline of the share price, then the value is gonna decrease as well. So it's a kind of a period during this quarter that when you see the share price down, then that the value is decreased as well. So that is why that we call the lossless time. Then it says you have a right to obtain or acquire, but do you need to acquire? we have a right to be able to receive in free so that if once that condition is achieved, we have a right to acquire this much of the shares in free. So this writing in a financial report, there are some other writing as well. Page 25, it says uncertain conditions. Is this the same thing? No, that's different things. That portion is a contingent value, right? That's a different thing than that one. So that's a separate. Thank you. Then page 59 in the middle. So the fair value of contingent consideration is what you have said about the right. And also after then, on what page that you have a footnote on that? I couldn't find the page of the financial report. Footnote. Fair value of contingent consideration details needs to refer to blanket of two, and I couldn't find that bucket. Let me come back to you with the pages, number pages. What I didn't understand is, in free, you can acquire those shares in free, but still, you're recording loss this much, and every quarter, you're recording, so that, although that you're acquiring in free, but you have recording loss for that much. That's your explanation. Every quarter, we value, we check the value, and sometimes value increase, sometimes decrease, and this time, recording loss because of that. Thank you. Thank you.

Any more questions from the floor? So we are going to take the last question from the floor now. Morita from Toyo Keizai. I have just one question. any relationship between the latest investment versus investment policy? For example, in logistics, three companies in logistics and tractable AI powered review policy. So I wonder if Of course, you want to have a defense and offense in terms of financial policy. But when it comes to investment, do you still being aggressive or more conservative. Financially, yes, we want to be defensive as well as offensive. We have, for example, investment committee. We have field discussions at investment committee. So three years ago, for example, at investment committee, a discussion was probably focusing on speed. And maybe now it's the time when we should have take a look at more in details and focusing on AI is something that we value this time. In the past, we might say that we invest in AI, but there are some companies that they are not really doing AI thing from your perspective. When it comes to investment stance, what's changed or if any, if you have changed any investment stance?

I agree with Koto-san. You mentioned tractable. We are very excited about that investment. It is definitely leveraging AI to make better decisions with respect to vehicles. So it's not necessarily a focus on logistics or any particular sector. The focus is really on mid- to late-stage, next-generation AI-focused companies with high growth potential at valuations that we believe are attractive.

Thank you very much. So at the moment, policy remains the same, but Goto-san, you make sure that you focus on AI with more attention to details. Yes, yes, thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, we would like to take a question from Zoom participants. To avoid any echoing, please. Turn off all the other live webcasts to prevent any goings. And also, if you are in Zoom in Japanese, please ask questions in Japanese. And now we would like to ask Mr. Nakagawa from Newspeaks, please ask your questions. Yes, this is Nakagawa from Newspeaks. Can you hear me okay? Yes, please go ahead. Thank you. Vision Fund. One question for the Vision Fund is the commitment total amount. Fund 2 commitment total in the previous earnings $56 billion and this time $60 billion. So that looks like commitment amount has increased. So, about $4 billion has increased. What is the background for increasing this amount? And also, you've been running some restrictions in the fund as well, and headcounts after the restrictions That being stays the same, but still restart investment activities. That's my first question. And for the second question, robotics and logistics that you mentioned earlier. So there are three companies you gave us as an example for the investments. And I believe this came from the SBG's investments. I would like to ask Oto-san about this, but you have investing in logistics, robotics, Quite a large, a billion kind of a size. And any kind of common backgrounds for those three companies for the investments? Yes, thank you. So first, questions regarding Vision Fund. The commitment amount increase Yes, amount has increased a bit here, but the Vision Fund too, actually, we don't set any upper limit for the commitment yet, so that when we see any new pipelines, and when we see more and more pipelines comes in, then we would like to flexibly increase, so that you may see the same kind of trend in the future again. and for the restructurings and the impact for the investment policy. Navneet, would you please cover that?

So you're correct that we've had two rounds of restructuring. One was in September of 22, and then we had another one in the June quarter. We now believe we are right-sized the organization for the investment opportunities that we see ahead. And this is the right size of the organization, both on the investing side and the functions.

And for your next question. Logistics area. It's not that we especially looking into logistic area and focus and look for the potential companies, anything like that, but actually when we see the growth of the business in the AIs and so on, especially for the synoptics and the Berkshire Grey, we have already invested in those companies in the past. And now that we see that the more deeper understanding of such companies in this AI introduction trend, then that we believe we would like to have, we wanted to have a good communication with the management of those two and decide to have investments in those two. companies so that once again it's not that we're limiting ourselves to these sectors or area there are many other pipelines in other areas as well for the coming quarter so over years that we would like to access and look for the good companies for the ai companies and every time when the time comes that we would like to update you yes thank you very much

Thank you very much. In the interest of time, that was the last question we take this time. Again, thank you very much. This concludes the SoftBank Group Corp earnings result briefing for the three-month period ended June 30, 2023. The video footage of this briefing will be uploaded on our corporate website. Thank you very much once again for joining the SoftBank Group Corp Earnings Results Briefing for the three-month period ended June 30, 2023.