1. Masayoshi Son (そんまさよし), an internationally renowned investor. Born in Japan in 1957, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1978. Founded SoftBank Group in 1981. He is currently the chairman and president of Software Bank Group.
2. Since its listing in 1994, Software Banking Company has owned 300 companies in Japan, including important joint ventures or sole proprietorships in the United States and Europe. It has all assets including related businesses, venture capital, and strategic alliances. , with a total capital of US$40 billion, ranks among the top ten largest companies in Japan.
3. As SoftBank’s stock price soared 16% since September 8, 2014, Masayoshi Son became the richest man in Japan on September 16, 2014, surpassing Tadashi Yanai, president of Fast Retailing Group, the parent company of Uniqlo, in one fell swoop. (TadashiYanai). The 57-year-old Masayoshi Son has a net worth of US$16.6 billion. Masaru Yanai is the second richest man in Japan, with a total net worth of US$16.2 billion.
4. Due to strong investor demand, Alibaba increased the reference price range for its initial public offering (IPO) from the original US$60-66 to US$66-68. Alibaba's prospectus shows that Japan's SoftBank Group holds 797,742,980 shares, accounting for 34.4%. As a result, Alibaba has raised US$21.8 billion, one step closer to the world's largest IPO. It can be seen that SoftBank has the attitude of "bet on one thing and win everything".
5. Masayoshi Son personally directly holds nearly 44% of SoftBank shares, and this has excluded 63.7 million shares that may be used as debt collateral. According to the new stock price, the shares that Son Zhengyi purchased for US$20 million in 2000 will be worth more than US$50 billion. A SoftBank spokesman declined to comment.
6. Since the mid-1990s, the Internet era has been rising like a new star, and Son Zhengyi began to invest wildly everywhere. In search of the most promising new technologies and online business models of the future, he bet billions of dollars on hundreds of obscure technology start-ups. Among them, Masayoshi Son invested US$20 million in Alibaba 14 years ago. At the time, Alibaba was still a small e-commerce company in China.
7. On April 6, 2020, Sun Zhengyi ranked 50th in the "Hurun Global Top 100 Entrepreneurs" with a wealth of 135 billion yuan. On June 25, Masayoshi Son announced his withdrawal from the board of directors of Alibaba Group.