SoftBank writes down India investment by $560 million

The Japanese firm had led a $210-million investment in Ola and $627 million in Snapdeal in October 2014. Image Source: Reuters

Japan's SoftBank Corporation has booked an investment loss of 58.14 billion yen ($560 million or nearly Rs 3,725.54 crore) on its investments in India including cab-hailing firm Ola and e-commerce company Snapdeal.

In the earning statement for six months ended on September 30, SoftBank wrote off 58.14 billion yen in the value of shares in its investments in India, that include ANI Technologies, which owns country's largest cab aggregator Ola, and Jasper Infotech, which runs e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal.

Of that, 29.62 billion yen was due to a currency impairment.

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"Gain or loss arising from financial instruments at FVTPL (fair value through profit or loss) comprises mainly changes in fair value of preferred stock investment including embedded derivatives, such as ANI Technologies Private Ltd and Jasper Infotech Private Limited in India, designated as financial assets at FVTPL," SoftBank said in the earnings statement.

The Japanese firm had led a $210-million (nearly Rs 1,397.1 crore) investment in Ola and $627 million (nearly Rs 4,171.27 crore) in Snapdeal in October 2014. It made follow-on investments in both firms.

Both Ola and Snapdeal are looking at raising fresh funds to sustain operations amid growing competition from rivals.

Bengaluru-based Ola has so far raised about $1.2 billion from a clutch of investors including Tiger Global Management, Matrix Partners, SoftBank Group and Didi Chuxing.

Last year, Snapdeal.com raised $500 million (nearly Rs 3,326.4 crore) from Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group, Foxconn Technology Group and existing investor SoftBank Group, which then valued the Delhi-based firm at about $4.8 billion (nearly Rs 31,933.2 crore) post money.

SoftBank has so far invested close to $2 billion (nearly Rs 13,305.5 crore) in India and earlier this year it stated that it is looking to scale up the investment to $10 billion (nearly Rs 66,527.5 crore) in next 5 to 10 years.

Last month, it said it will form a new fund with Saudi Arabia's public investment fund to invest as much as $100 billion (nearly Rs 6,65,275 crore) in the global technology industry in the next five years.

"My goal is to become the Warren Buffett of the tech industry. We're aiming to be the Berkshire Hathaway of tech," SoftBank Group Corp Chief Executive Masayoshi Son said after the earnings announcement.

For the July-September quarter, SoftBank posted a net profit of 512 billion yen, compared with 213 billion yen the year before, boosted by gains from the sale of stakes in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding and Finnish game maker Supercell Oy.

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