Singapore’s primary Chinese language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao recently reported that Japanese investment giant SoftBank suspended new investments in China while observing the development of China’s rectification of its domestic technology industry. Masayoshi Son, Chairman and President of the SoftBank Group, said at a press conference, “We want to wait and see the changes before the situation becomes more clear.” SoftBank previously invested in Internet giants including Didi, ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok), and Alibaba. China’s recent wave of anti-monopoly regulations this year has brought huge changes to the stock prices of these companies. Since July, Alibaba’s stock price has fallen by 14 percent. Seven Chinese Ministries are jointly conducting cybersecurity reviews on Didi, which also reduced the value of SoftBank investments. According to SoftBank’s 2021 first quarter financial report, its net profit suffered a year-over-year decrease of 39 percent.
Source: Lianhe Zaobao, August 12, 2021
https://www.zaobao.com.sg/realtime/china/story20210812-1181086