I mean what do you make of these losses. You know the thing is that some of it is mark to market. The thing is where's it all
going wrong for Softbank. Well we're delighted to see those losses because we're short of
stocks. So so this is where we stand. Well we probably would only guys out there telling people to to to to investors to
short the name. So we're reasonably happy with the results. But I mean yeah look the Softbank has been talking about disciplined
approach towards investment ever since we work technical you know few years ago.
We haven't seen any sign of that. What what really kind of concerns us even more now is that despite the capital
constraints that the companies are up against they've decided to use 400 billion yen. All of that of that cash flow we raised
from maybe Ali Baba sell or forward contracts sell to buy back shares which is ludicrous. You know in this kind of situation
what you really want to do is do average pay off dad clean up the you know the portfolio as much as you can and then hope for
the best that the market will rebound because that's at the end of the day that very much depends on what the market does
whether it's the IPO market drying up and then maybe restarting at some stage or or even a B.C. market. You know is showing some
signs of life but I don't see any lessons learned. And the other thing of course is that these big cuts that they're going to
make in Division Fund leaves them very stretched in terms of how they're going to manage those investments that we've made thus
far. We know less and less people. So we're not we're not convinced. I mean you know we think it's a. Yeah. Sorry. I mean
the thing is it also I mean the issue is you know we've also got of course a possibility of some you know a lot of leverage.
And also of course margin calls. Are you concerned about that. Yeah. I mean margin calls is definitely a big concern
particularly on the on Alibaba stake. I think they've sold much of the stake so they can that have not
been pledged. But remember that last time I think was in March when Alibaba
was share price well below the 80 level there was immediate cause for margin calls that they avoided luckily. So if Alibaba
gets you know goes down again that that's that's one of the big ones where you know the big stake that they have fairly high
leverage on some say is by 30 billion dollars of loans. Obviously we don't know for sure. But yeah I mean you know I
just I just. Yes sorry. So I mean I just wanted to pick up on on that because you
mentioned your short. Just to clarify your short in which specific security. I'm guessing it's it's I'm guessing it's the
group and not so much the telco. And if that is the case and you have a specific target for that stock then.
No not really. No. We we just think that you know as long as the current market conditions remain severe and Softbank has been a
poster child of all the excesses of the last couple of years I mean they're always opposed to short of some excess that goes
on. Whether it was the tech bubble of the late 90s there were a poster child then a sign just can't help himself. Just likes to
get involved in that in the animal spirits going to get you know when they get very very frothy and they always coming out at a
very high levels. And partly it was really interesting that they actually sold Uber just before all those earnings came out and
albeit with share prices up 15 percent since then. So they've sold their entire stake right at the bottom of the share price
which obviously doesn't bode well whether you're buying at the highs or you're selling at the lows it once again demonstrates
that you know there's not much there's not much methods madness. And Amir to Russia's earlier question I wanted to follow up on
that too. I mean Mark to market at some point they'll have to produce to cash in. They've been selling some of the forward
contracts and see Alibaba as an example of their way I guess of something shoring up liquidity. Do you think Softbank will find
itself in a severe cash crunch situation. Well they're selling the most liquid names first. I mean so you
know Ali Baba is obviously one of the first ones that you sell. The second one would be Softbank the telecom unit which which
you mentioned. So Softbank Corp. which is easier very easily. I mean it's easy to be able to offload that asset because it's
fairly liquid in Japan. And it's a telecom name which is fairly defensive. So that's another name that they could you know
potentially resort to selling. And if they do sell. See they want to have access to the cash flow which is which is an issue
for them. But yeah I mean look you know that what is happening is that this sorry. I was just gonna get to pick up on something
as well that you're talking about as we see interest rates go up. We see the era of cheap money coming to an end. Does this
how does this affect the gig economy which actually Softbank is heavily invested in. Because they may well find that they are
not making money in the future now as they were predicting before.
Yeah I mean look I mean you know they still talk about how diverse they are in terms of their portfolio. But if you
actually look at things that they board like Uber door dash grab data the second things I mean globally you you know that I don't
see that much diversity in the names that have they've accumulated
big stakes. I mean from obviously. Ali Baba. I mean you know that. So yeah I mean if one does believe that the economy is
gonna slow down and I think we've seen a bit of a tailwind on some of these names because you know the opening of the
economies on a post lockdown has led to in order to recover here in earnings. And I think that might actually prove short term.
But I think over the longer term. Yeah you're right. I mean you know it is these are these companies even Uber. Are they going
to ever you know make a profit on hand. And if they do so when cars obviously they're out of work. So it doesn't really make
any difference for them.