
Softbank's Imminent Writedown: The Folly That Was Taking Saudi Money [video] - lawrenceyan
http://www.reuters.tv/v/PNT2/2019/01/01/predictions-softbank-s-imminent-writedown
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new299
This two minute video seems to say very little. That SoftBank is “investing
for a future in about 300 years time when we’ll all have chips in everyday
objects like streetlights and refrigerators”.

And that there’s going to be a global economic slowdown in 2019, and this will
be a problem for Softbanks vision fund valuation. Doesn’t say anything about
taking Saudi money being bad that I can tell...

Also, there are already many chips in streetlights and refrigerators... seems
like a very basic error...

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ekianjo
> The rest of the video says there is going to be a global economic slowdown
> in 2019, and this will be a problem for Softbanks vision fund valuation.
> Doesn’t say anything about taking Saudi money being bad that I can tell...

You need to have a clickbaity headline! Add some Saudis, Russians, Chinese
depending on what trends up now to generate more views.

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Traster
This is just rubbish. Firstly, my fridge has a chip in it today, so what the
hell that's got to do with 300 years in the future I have no idea. Secondly,
while individual valuations of companies may be higher than analysts thought
that tells us nothing about whether the fund will face trouble. As for using
leverage for the fund, whilst that is rare in VC funds, it's actually not that
bad a move - as the video notes, the investors in the fund are people with
investment horizons on the order of decades and deep pockets. This means they
can weather a credit crunch or downturn much better than the average leveraged
investor. Finally, the speculation on a slow down is just awful - yes! There
could be a slow down, in fact over the life of a fund like this they're
guaranteed to see a slow down at some point. That doesn't mean the fund is bad
- all funds and companies will suffer in a slow down, but if you have a strong
portfolio of companies heading into a slow down you're actually in a very good
position to exploit weak competition and gain market dominance during the time
other companies are struggling with layoffs and restructuring.

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ENOTTY
The news I got out of the video was the debt-based structure of the fund and
the effects of that on the fund with imminent writedowns.

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sremani
Nothing particularly about Saudi money, its more about consequences of cheap
money on Softbank and by extension Silicon Valley "high valuation - no profit"
jig being up by the double threat of high interest rates and low/no growth.

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PaulHoule
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3hA9cjBBwM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3hA9cjBBwM)

