The recovery came after the Japanese conglomerate reported historic losses of US$13 billion for its last fiscal year. Its US$100-billion Vision Fund, which saw an US$18-billion loss in the previous quarter, drove the turnaround with an investment gain of US$2.8 billion this quarter. (Financial Times)

Talking point: After scaling back its ambitions and letting go of some significant assets, SoftBank is benefitting from a pandemic-fuelled global rally in technology stocks and demand for its investments, like Uber and Slack. Profits were also boosted by approval for T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint, which SoftBank owns a major stake in, and home-insurance company Lemonade’s successful IPO. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said five or six other portfolio companies are preparing to go public. Investors are cautiously optimistic about SoftBank, but wary of how it will respond to ongoing U.S.-China tensions. In the earnings call, Son announced a new US$555-million fund that would use part of his own money to invest in tech giants like Amazon, Apple and Facebook. Vision Fund, meanwhile, is an investor in ByteDance, the Chinese owner of controversial video platform TikTok.