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Softbank's deals - Sprint, WeWork, and now this - make me question their financial intelligence.

• mrnobody_67 7y ago
  Their last Uber investment is under water... wouldn't be surprised if the $2b in WeWork stock they purchased is crushed as well at IPO time -- but at least they didn't follow through with the $8b they initially promised to Adam.
  • onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
    I read that SoftBank structured their investment in some way that they made money on the IPO even though the price was below what they bought in at. It didn't really make any sense to me, but I wanted to ask here: Is there any truth to that? And if so how did it work?
    • charlesdm 7y ago
      I think they also bought common stock? During private fundraising, investor (vs founder) stock generally has preferred rights when the company is sold and/or liquidated. There might also be restrictions on who and how someone can sell their common shares. This depends on the investors and the terms that were negotiated during fundraising. So common stock generally is sold at a discount because it doesn't have any of these protections, and it's basically last in line to receive any payout. However during IPO, often preferred stock converts into normal common stock so that it can be sold to Joe Smuck (or their pension fund institutional) investor. Hence it's an arbitrage play; you purchase common at say a 30% discount in a late round and then sell it on the market for full price.
• charlesdm 7y ago
  Ah, but Alibaba...