The Japanese digital payments platform is acquiring a 70.2% stake in T&D Holdings’ life insurance unit, marking its push into life insurance as it expands beyond payments, cards, banking and securities. One Investment Management is also part of the deal.
The division of the Swiss company has a workforce of approximately 7,000 and had revenues of $2.3bn in 2024; SoftBank is looking to fuse artificial super intelligence and robotics.
The aim of the stock purchase is to help boost advanced technology and semiconductor innovation in the US; Intel has been under the spotlight of the US administration in recent weeks.
SoftBank has said it will spend $3bn annually to deploy customised AI across its group of companies; the JV, known as SB OpenAI Japan, will sell to Japanese firms.
Under the aegis of Softbank’s Vision Fund, the Indian budget hotel chain has quickly expanded into China and Europe. But the startup cannot outrun poor business practices that have left customers dissatisfied and investors skittish.
Softbank’s latest buyback programme marginally addresses shareholder demands; it is an act of goodwill rather than an inflection point for the company’s investment priorities.
A Grab-Gojek consolidation has always been the talk of the town, given overlapping business similarities, but never taken seriously – until now. There are two outcomes that seem the most likely, but an M&A is not one of them.
Softbank and Naver plan to take messaging app LINE private. This will not only lead to improved R&D spend, it will also unlock value for the majority shareholders.
