It’s just another day where SoftBank is making a billion-dollar transaction. SoftBank is a Japanese tech conglomerate that’s probably the biggest investor in the tech industry worldwide. Both directly or via its mammoth investment funds, it holds stakes in various tech companies and startups globally that are collectively worth tens of billions of $$$.

• This time, the transaction from SoftBank is that it’s cut its stake in Coupang, a South Korean e-commerce giant in which it was an early investor. Coupang became publicly-traded this year and has thus given SoftBank a chance to convert paper shares into hard cash.

• SoftBank recently sold $1.7bn worth of Coupang stock on the open markets, a recent filing with the SEC shows. SVF Investments, a subsidiary of SoftBank incorporated in the UK, sold 57 million Coupang shares each for a price of $29.7, making $1.7bn in total. The transaction took place on Tuesday, the 14th of September.

• Despite cashing out $1.7bn, SoftBank still remains Coupang’s biggest shareholder with a remaining 568.2 million shares worth nearly $17bn at current prices. Inclusive of the $1.7bn it just sold, it’s a very nice return for investing a total of $3bn in Coupang when it was still a private company.

• SoftBank itself first invested $1bn in Coupang in 2015 then followed with a $2bn investment from its Vision Fund in 2018. From $3bn to nearly $20bn (inclusive of shares sold and current on-paper value) in just six years is a very good deal. With the crisp dollar bills, SoftBank can at least wipe its tears from the big losses it made on companies like WeWork ($8bn+) and British satellite company OneWeb ($400mn+).

• As it is with venture capital, you spray money across many grounds and look for the few that’ll bring in outsized profits net of the ones that’ll fumble or perform woefully. In SoftBank’s case despite its losses on some bets, it reported a whopping $46bn profit in its fiscal year ended March 2021, marking the highest annual profit ever reported by a Japanese company.

• Coupang is largely the biggest e-commerce company in South Korea. It’s akin to Amazon in the region due to its dominance of the market and yet still growing, such that it brought in $12bn in sales in 2020, nearly double that of the previous year. 

• Though Korean, Coupang chose to go public in the US and raised $4.6bn from an IPO this March. It trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: CPNG), with a current market cap of $51bn, down from a peak of $109bn on the day of its IPO.

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