2019 fiscal year, Softbank Group net loss of 700 billion yen, equivalent to 40.7 billion yuan, is the largest loss in 15 years since the listing of Softbank, but also the first time Softbank annual loss. In 2020, Softbank Group "back from the dead", net profit reached 4.9 trillion yen, equivalent to 294.8 billion yuan.

From a loss of 40.7 billion, to a net profit of 294.8 billion, creating a so big fall and rise "myth", it is the founder of the Softbank Group, Masayoshi Son.

2020, Sun Masayoshi in the end did what, can make the loss of 1.35 trillion yen Softbank from "hell" to "heaven"?

When you think of Masayoshi Son, you think of Jack Ma, who first met him in 2000 at an IT startup conference. Masayoshi Sun is a visionary, acting ruthless people, only 6 minutes to see through the Ma Alibaba future "money", immediately decided to spend 40 million dollars to invest in Alibaba, accounting for 49% of the shares, Ma felt that the hands of the hand does not lack so much money, and ultimately 20 million dollars of Masayoshi Sun into Alibaba, accounting for 34% of the shares.

This is an investment that makes Sun "God".

In September 2014, Alibaba was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and the $20 million invested by Masayoshi Sun became $50 billion, an increase of up to 4,000 times.

In that year, Masayoshi Son was crowned "Japan's richest man".

Of course, Mr. Sun's proud investment is not only Alibaba, for example, people know: Yahoo, Sina, NetEase, PPTV, RenRen, Shanda Networks, etc.

In 2016, Mr. Sun invested $20 million in Alibaba, which is the largest company in Japan.

In 2016, Masayoshi Son traveled to Saudi Arabia to raise money for Softbank's Vision Fund. In the private jet, Sun Masayoshi flipped through the PPT to be shown to the Middle East investors, PPT is expected to raise the scale of 30 billion U.S. dollars, this figure has exceeded the size of the world's largest private equity firm Blackstone's management at the time. And Mr. Sun pondered for a moment, but actually said to the assistant: will be raised from 30 billion dollars to 100 billion dollars. The assistant wondered if he had heard wrong, to know from 2014 to 2016, the entire U.S. venture capital industry to raise funds a **** only $ 110 billion.

And Masayoshi Sun smiled and said: life is short, the pattern should be big.

The Vision Fund, which successfully raised $100 billion in 2017, began to "sail out to sea" with Masayoshi Son, and became a formidable force in the global venture capital field.

The general investment process of venture capital is to make small-scale investments in small-scale enterprises, and then make additional investments when the enterprises get bigger.

But Masayoshi Sun's "madness" does not allow him to be so conservative, 100 billion dollars a day, close to tens of millions of dollars in interest also urged him to make a quick profit, Masayoshi Sun to specify the field of the most successful technology companies to invest huge amounts of money. Masayoshi Sun is to prove that a bite can eat a fat?

From 2017 to 2019, the Vision Fund invested in a cumulative total of 86 companies.

*** Enjoy Office Unicorn, WeWork: $18.5 billion;

*** Enjoy Car Unicorn, Uber: $9.3 billion;

Cell Phone Chip Design Unicorn, ARM: $8.2 billion.

The Vision Fund is like a giant whale that wants to disrupt entire industries with every stroke.

But has the market given him a good return on his fervent investment?

In the first half of 2020 alone, three of Masayoshi Son's investments went bankrupt. Among them, the German payment predator Wirecard filed for bankruptcy, the direct loss of SoftBank for 900 million euros; the collapse of the U.S. e-commerce platform Brandless, SoftBank lost another 240 million U.S. dollars; star startup Oneweb filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, SoftBank's previous investment of 2 billion U.S. dollars hit the water.

In 2019, WeWork, which was once favored by Masayoshi Son and called "the next Alibaba", failed to go public, and this "giant baby" raised by Masayoshi Son was dissatisfied with the failure of SoftBank to fulfill the 3 billion dollar equity acquisition offer, and sued Masayoshi Son. The company's first step was to take the case to court.

When interviewed by the media, Masayoshi Sun confessed that 15 of the 86 companies invested in by the Vision Fund may go bankrupt.

In addition to bankruptcy, many of the companies invested in by the Vision Fund have experienced varying degrees of layoffs.

Among them, Getaround, the US*** hedonic cab platform, laid off 25% of its staff, and Zume, the smart pizza delivery company, laid off 80% of its staff. These kinds of mass layoffs are either breaking the bank or are already on the verge of bankruptcy - in short, it's pretty bleak.

In April 2020, once SoftBank's 2019 annual report came out, the entire market was shocked.

In fiscal year 2019, the size of the Vision Fund shrunk by 1.8 trillion yen, equivalent to about $16.7 billion.3 years later, investors in the Vision Fund lost 16.7%. Although people have lost their hands, horses have lost their hooves, but this time Sun Masayoshi lost his hands seems to be a little big. Sun Masayoshi fell from "Japan's richest man" to "Japan's most negative".

I don't know how Crown Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia, the largest investor in the Vision Fund, felt at that time.

In order to save himself, Masayoshi Son started to break his wrist.

The first is to sell the stock, if you do not want to find a way to free up enough liquidity, I am afraid that Softbank will not be able to support the next fiscal year.

Masayoshi Sun first sold the best liquidity, the market willingness to take over the strongest Alibaba shares, this alone, Masayoshi Sun recovered $ 15.4 billion.

Subsequently, Masayoshi Sun also sold the third largest mobile operator T-Mobile, the British chip design company ARM part of the stake.

In addition to selling stakes, Sun set up an equity and derivatives investment unit in July 2020 to invest in some Chinese Internet concept stocks that are liquid and can be realized at any time, such as Aqiyi, Beili Beili, and Pinduoduo.

Masayoshi Sun's Vision Fund has changed from a primary market venture capital fund investing in startups to a private equity fund trading in the secondary market, which Masayoshi Sun explains: he only wants to invest in the best companies in a given field, and he doesn't care about whether or not the other party goes public.

Indeed, when Masayoshi invested in WeWork at a valuation of $47 billion, its "astronomical" valuation did not need to be listed.

The most gratifying thing for Masayoshi Sun is that the startups that he invested in before are "springing back", and the Vision Fund is starting to "heal itself".

In March 2020, Mr. Sun invested US$1 billion, equivalent to 14 billion yuan, in 7.1% of the shares of Chain Home's Self-Ru and Shell platforms. 2020 August, Shell was listed on the U.S. stock market as the first share of the "residential service platform", and the listing day rose 87.2%, and the market value of Shell peaked at 87.2%. Shell market value peaked at more than 660 billion yuan. In only half a year, the 14 billion dollars invested by Mr. Sun has become 47 billion dollars.

At the end of 2020, DoorDash, a U.S. restaurant platform, successfully went public, bringing about $11 billion in profits to Masayoshi Son and the Vision Fund.

In addition to this, the listing of U.S. ride-hailing company Uber and South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang one after another brought new life to the Vision Fund.

SoftBank's 2020 annual report came out with a net profit of up to 4.9879 trillion yen, equivalent to 294.8 billion yuan. Masayoshi Son returned to the throne of Japan's richest man, and SoftBank became the third most profitable company in the world.

At this point, Masayoshi Son can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Everything changes in this world, and the only thing that doesn't change is change itself. In just one year's time, Masayoshi Son returned from being "Japan's biggest loser" to being "Japan's richest man" at $44.6 billion, and ranked 33rd on the world's richest list.

Masayoshi Son's success has a component of luck, but more unique vision, and bold action.

Now that Masayoshi Sun is just over 60 years old, his ambitions and aspirations have not diminished at all.

It has been said that Masayoshi Sun is half Jack Ma, half Soros. Half crazy entrepreneur, half crazy investor.

Of course, together, it is 100% "crazy" Masayoshi Sun.

All together, it's 100% "crazy" Masayoshi Sun.