Now, we would like to start the SoftBank Group Corp. earnings results announcement for the nine-month period ended December 31, 2023. First of all, I would like to introduce today's participants. From left, we have Yoshimitsu Goto, Board Director and CFO. Kazuko Kimiwada, Corporate Officer, Senior Vice President and the Head of Accounting Unit. Navneet Govil, SB Investment Advisers, SB Global Advisers, CFO. And Jason Child, Executive Vice President and CFO, Arm. Jason is attending through Zoom. Today's announcement is live broadcast over internet. Now, I would like to invite Yoshimitsu Goto to present you the earnings results and business overview.
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Goto. Thank you very much for your time today. First of all, I would like to express our deepest sympathies to those who have been severely affected by the Noto Peninsula earthquake on January 1, 2024.
We are heartbroken over the news of serious damages to the region and people still living in difficult situation. We, SoftBank Group, would like to do our best to support the disaster area through internet services we provide, including mobile phones, LINE and Yahoo, so that the affected people will be able to be back to the normal life as soon as possible. About a year ago, just about a year ago on the New Year's, I was there in Noto with my family. I was so impressed with the great beauty of the nature there and the great people there. We came back, and, actually, that place I was there a year ago has been affected by this disastrous earthquake. So I very much hope that the affected places is gonna be recover soon.
Now let me start our highlights for the quarterly results announcement. Third quarter, 2023, we have 5 highlights. First, significant improvement in consolidated results, with JPY 950 billion net income. So, profit in quarter for a while, and I'm a bit relieved to have such a news for you. And also acquired JPY 1.1 trillion T-Mobile shares for no additional consideration. And three, net asset value increased JPY 2.8 trillion, quarter-over-quarter, to JPY 19.2 trillion, driven by the increased value of Arm. Third, fourth, portfolio shift from Alibaba to AI, with Arm as the core. We've been working on this for the past few years. Our asset was mainly focusing, focused on Alibaba, but now that we are clearly shifting to AI. Last but not the least, a significant improvement in Vision Fund performance.
And now, I'd like to start with consolidated results. As you see, want you to look at the net income, JPY 950 billion. JPY 1.7 trillion of the increase compared to last quarter, same quarter last year. And the driver for that is actually JPY 424 billion of the gross and gain in investments, and this was increased by JPY 936 billion. Gain and loss on investments and net income here. But the lines are the quarterly changes, and in the past four quarters, we've been seeing the net loss. But this quarter, we are able to show you the big improvements here. And the main driver for that is the orange lines, which is the gain and loss on investments.
Especially this first quarter to second and third quarter, we are making a very steady improvements, quarter by quarter. I would like to be a little bit more details in terms of the gain and loss on investments. So we have SBG investments, and also we have a Vision Fund investment. In this slide, you can see the breakdown in between those two. So blue portion is the Vision Fund investments activities, and orange are the investment from the holding company, SoftBank Group, and you see pink lines. This is the consolidated results, and JPY 424 billion of the gains are recorded this time. And the next agenda is the acquired JPY 1.1 trillion yen of the T-Mobile shares.
And what happened was that, originally, we invested in Sprint, and after the merger between Sprint and T-Mobile, we had several discussion, negotiation with the counterpart, and this is one of the contingent consideration. T-Mobile share, when the condition of the 45-day VWAP was over $149.35, then that leads to our 48.8 million shares equivalent. So this is the earn-out term, and this was actually achieved as a result. As of the present share price, it was JPY 1.1 trillion, and we are able to acquire those. Sprint investment. We had suffered a lot as well. After the announcement of acquisition, many consideration was made from many people, or the many complaints or criticism was also there as well.
Also, Masa management team, and actually the actual hands-on people be working on to make this investments better one. And back then, actually, we knew it's gonna take a longer time, but also actually that the increase or enhancing the value was dramatic after the acquisition. So originally, JPY 3.3 trillion of the investment was made, and return, as of the end of December, this rose to JPY 5 trillion. Equity return was JPY 3.4 trillion. So equity IRRs are 24.6%. MOIC, or multiple of invested capital, was 8.2x. So I believe this project or that this investment was very good in terms of economy.
Also, recent figures-wise, as of the recent share price-wise, actually is slightly improving as well. So U.S. telecoms, I want to share with you some history. Right before the acquisition of Sprint, 2012, AT&T was a king, and Verizon was very much a second player. Sprint was far behind, and actually, T-Mobile was even smaller back then. So the third, number three player and number four player was merged together. But as of yesterday, December 31st, you can see the result, what happened on your right-hand side. New T-Mobile has actually surpassed AT&T and Verizon.
Not only that in the United States, but also in the world, actually, the T-Mobile market, by market cap, it is the number one in the world, as well as in the United States. I believe that the management is doing great job in T-Mobile, and the Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile, they are also having a great efforts into the T-Mobile, too. T-Mobile share price, 2020, it was $82. Record high since IPO was $165. It was up by 99% since the merger, so I believe that this was a great result from the great management's efforts. Here are the key indicators. One of the most important KPIs are net asset value, loan-to-value, and cash position.
Net asset value at the, as of the end of December, JPY 19.2 trillion. So we believe that asset, grow, quite largely. Loan to value, 11.5%, continuously keeping a very safe level. Cash position, slightly decreased because we have some investment activities, but still JPY 4.4 trillion. And, as a finance policy to cover at least two year equivalence of the debt redemption, actually, this cash position covers over four years of the debt redemption, so this is also another safe level of the KPI. Net asset value, JPY 2.8 trillion increased, and I want to, discuss a little bit about the breakdown.
Share price increase, JPY 4.2 trillion was from the share price increase, mainly driven by Arm growth, JPY 3 trillion, and the JPY 0.4 trillion is from T-Mobile and some others.
...In the past, three months from October to December, yen to dollar actually was changed the trend from the yen depreciation to yen appreciation. So, that is negative for the net asset value calculation-wise, and this was why the minus JPY 1.1 trillion. And net-net, still, the JPY 2.8 trillion of the increase has been secured for net asset value. So I believe that the share price was a main and very important driver.
Now let me talk about Arm. Earlier today, in Japan time, they announced their financial results. And share price exceeded $78, which is record high since IPO, and today's price is about the same. IPO price was $51, so share price saw increase by 54.1% in a very short period of time, great performance. And this has a significant positive impact on our share price, especially today.
Let me talk about investment return on Arm, like I explained about T-Mobile earlier. In 2016, I believe, we made an investment at JPY 3.3 trillion, but equity portion was bigger. We had a great cash position, so we didn't have to borrow too much, and equity was JPY 2.3 trillion, plus some leverage. That was when we made investment. As of December 31st, JPY 11 trillion of return and equity grew from JPY 2.3 trillion to JPY 10 trillion. Equity IRR 21%, and MOIC 4.2x, which is great performance for a big ticket item. Not only that, until the end of December 31st, looking at the most recent share price, which was up, so equity IRR even increased more. And for Arm, we expect more growth from Arm, and Arm is the biggest contributor to global AI evolution.
So we have the highest expectation from Arm than anybody else. And looking at the SoftBank Corporation, which is the mobile carrier in Japan, they announced a financial result yesterday. Not only their business performance, but also their share price performance have been very good. And in fact, mobile market is on a good trend in Japan at the moment. And IPO price of SoftBank Corporation was JPY 1,500, and the record high since IPO was JPY 1,900. Slightly declined recently, but still, a record high price was up by 33% since IPO. Right after IPO, maybe we had caused some concerns among the investors, but, SoftBank Corporation focuses on dividend yield, which is 4.9%. And, SBG, in fact, received a dividend, almost JPY 1 trillion.
So not only the share price, but also the dividend we receive have been the value that we have been enjoying with SoftBank Corp. Now, our Vision Funds. For the three consecutive quarters, they made a profit, which is really reassuring. Two years ago, we had some tough time, but since then, right after tank, if you will, they have been steadily improving their performance. Cumulatively speaking, again, we have seen improvement continuously, and it's been recovering to, what, negative JPY 2.9 trillion? Almost there, almost there. So again, this is cumulative number, including Vision Fund 2 and LatAm. Loan to value. In the last 12 months, we have been very at low level, which is good, because we focused on defense. So in the last 12 months or so, the LTV have been about 10%, but our policy or guideline is 25%.
25% itself is very safe, less than half of 25% is current level. We'll come back to the point, what we're gonna do with this low LTV as an investment company. We have more opportunity for investment. I think that's what the number can tell. Cash position. We maintain high level. Continuously, we keep high level. Of course, as an investment company, we want to have good cash position to make sure we are not gonna miss investment opportunity. As an investment company, again, we will finance and we will invest in mid-long term. Sometimes we may focus on return, and sometimes we may focus on make investment, but we make sure that we maintain a certain level of cash position always. Impact of Forex.
As of the end of September, $1 was 149 JPY, but as of December 31, up to 141 JPY. So higher yen has an impact on NAV by JPY 1.1 trillion. On accounting side, the higher yen had negative impact on equity, but positive impact on consolidated net income. By the way, in January, the yen has been weakened, so I think it's around JPY 148 per dollar. So at the moment, this negative impact might have been gone. Now, shift from Alibaba to AI. In the past, our portfolio was mainly built by Alibaba, but we have been shifting the assets from Alibaba to others, and I think, now we are at the stage of completion of shifting. This chart compared as of December 31, 2019, and December 31, 2023.
So four years ago, Alibaba accounted for 50% of assets held. Arm, 9%, Vision Fund, 12%. That was four years ago. As of December 31, four years later, Alibaba effectively 0%. Arm account for 32%, up from 9%. Vision Fund, likewise, as they have been investing more, increased from 12% to 18% in terms of percentage of our assets held. So we have done dynamic shift. Even though net asset value or gross asset value have not changed dramatically, but content changed dramatically. What it means is, we have gone through a shift from Alibaba to AI-centric portfolio. Arm, obviously, and Vision Fund have been investing in opportunities for businesses that contribute to AI evolution. SoftBank Corporation, although they are mobile operator, they are really committed to themselves to become AI-centric company.
We can deliver synergies from those invested businesses, and that should bring us an opportunity to make new investment. At the same time, as AI industry grows, those businesses should grow along with AI evolution going forward. Talking about Alibaba, when we had a lot of Alibaba before, we were China-centric, but now we have gone through the shift. The regional composition changed dramatically, so we have been able to mitigate risk of being China-centric. Four years ago, 54% accounted for the regional composition, the red part, China, and now only 8%. And 43% EMEA, including Arm and also Japan, other APAC, 15% and 9% respectively, so we are well-balanced in terms of geography. By the way, North America, 21%. So looking at those changes from different angle, looking back the history, as you can see-
... Alibaba have been going down, whereas, have been going up. So it shows a shift, obvious shift from Alibaba to Arm. About net asset value, another important aspect of, NAV is as follows: the timeline starts, from 1998 through 2023. I joined SoftBank 2000. I think this is the history of mine in SoftBank, if you want. And I have seen ups and down. Important message here is we are on upward trend recently, not only to SoftBank Group, but also market condition and the future outlook have been very positive. And that have had a positive impact to us as well. We expect, we hope, at least, that next 12-24 months should be growth term. And not only NAV, but also market cap is another important indicator that, we need to, always keep in mind.
The NAV discount is 52%. NAV is JPY 19.2 trillion, but market cap was only JPY 9.2 trillion. So again, NAV discount is 52%, which is really a serious thing that we need to look at. But today's share price was at JPY 7,350. And at that rate, NAV discount will be 40% something. But of course, NAV itself should increase even more as Arm grows. So we have to keep watching NAV discount, and we need to figure out how we can narrow the width of NAV discount.
Here on, we would like to discuss about Arm. In one word, it's doing great. You see the results and announcements, and you may also check the numbers announced this morning, Japan time.
The cumulative number of shipments of chip, actually, this graph is actually we were using when we were discussing to acquire Arm, and this was a kind of picture we were seeing at the time of the acquisition. And this exponential graph is something that very much overlap with what its actual was with our expectation, and very happy that they were able to show these great numbers of the Arm-based chips shipped. And also, great strategy discussion with industry leaders making progress. This is just one example that three example, to be more specific. For example, the Renesas Electronics adapted Arm-based technology for the high performance microcontroller, which delivers real-time operation.
Also, MediaTek adapted Arm-based CPU and GPU for Dimensity 9300 chip for high-performing smartphone. Microsoft also announced that developed its first CPU for cloud servers, which is Arm-based and performs 40% higher than current generation. So with those major players in the industry, we are, Arm is able to having great discussions and making a good progress in a strategic move. With such a great progress, quarterly revenue is continuously reaching record high, and $824 million, and also the royalty revenue for the quarterly basis, this is the highest ever. And the quarterly non-GAAP operating income, quarter-to-quarter 17% increase. And earlier this morning, also disclosed the guidance and business forecast, and as a result of this, guidance updated.
The range in between $3,155 million-$3,205 million, and very steadily making on the performance and very much expecting that it's gonna be following as it has guided. This is the guidance for the business performances announced earlier, and fourth quarter revenue is expected between $850 million-$900 million. Full year basis, $3.1 billion-$3.2 billion. You have some parentheses, brackets underneath. This is the prior guidance range, and actually the upper range was just about $3 billion. And actually, this time, the range of the smaller one is exceeding what was previously announced as a upper range of the prior guidance.
So this is great news and great guidance that we are very happy to hear such a great progress. And how and what kind of growth driver will be the kind of player for the Arm's future? And there are four big agenda. One is the royalty revenue, and next is subsystem, which I will be putting some more color on this later, and compute for AI, and also the world's largest ecosystem to support such three agenda. So these are the kind of the main driver for the future growth of Arm. First, royalty revenue. Because the demand is increasing in semiconductor, it is expected a 7% growth for the industry itself. In this industry, Arm actually reaching to variety of the markets, not only to the smartphones, for example, PC, automotive, infrastructure.
Those can be a very attractive market, and that can be another market share that the Arm is going to be able to aim for. In addition to that, royalty rates itself is increasing, and that's another expectation we'll be able to add on. So on the various devices, complicated computing is required, such as generative AI and so on, and that requires even more higher quality chip. And along with the needs for the higher quality chip, rates for the royalty is going to be also increased. So the quantity is gonna increase, and at the same time, royalty rates increase. As a result, you see, the good growth in royalty revenue. And subsystems or the growth from subsystems for the designing of the semiconductor chip is becoming even more complicated.
For those licensees are designing, are using such, design, but not all of the each individual IPs, but Arm provides integrated and verified configurations of Arm IP, and such needs are increasing. The users will be able to minimize the time necessary, by having such a subsystem. For those that are, using this subsystem does not require to developing from the each individual IP, so that you'll be able to reduce the cost and also the time to market. Right now, Arm is, having a great, contract with the five companies so far, of which are the Microsoft. Microsoft's Azure Cobalt CPU for cloud servers are developed using Arm-based subsystem, which delivers 40% higher performance per watt.
Even with other customers, they'll be able to reduce the time to market and also be able to still develop the complicated chips. And third, growth from compute for AI. To do the generative AI developments or machine learning, energy efficiency is even more important. So server to PC, to camera, smartphones, anywhere, Arm-based chip has been used because of such energy efficiency. For example, recently, Samsung in Korea just announced a smartphone using the latest edge chip, Arm-based chip, that actually enables live translations or the high-quality edge computing performance. With such elements, actually, we have the largest ecosystem to support that, and Arm has built out the world's largest collection of companies who work together to make Arm-based chip design successful. Many companies actually communicating closely together, and that this ecosystem is built.
With those companies collaborating, and have all the parts and process ready, then that they will be able to have this chip. So intercompatibilities with the other companies, part is also very important. So not only the licensee, but also for those customer who are not our licensee, actually, we are providing the compatible test free of charge, so that we are try to build the infrastructure, which can run AI-based chip properly. Right now, about 70% of the world population are using Arm-based products in many ways. Smartphone probably is the easiest example. And not only that, many devices around you are actually using Arm-based chip or Arm-based products.
And design and develop, so those people who are in the process of developing, developers involved in developing Arm-based chip is 15 million around about, and at the same time, more than 1,000 partner companies are involved in shipping Arm-based chip. So with such a great collaborations and a great ecosystem, we are successfully producing, or we are successfully providing, Arm-based chip. In the beginning, I mentioned about the share price of Arm, and recently, we've been seeing a great development of the share price as an invested investor of Arm. But in future, actually, we are hoping, and we are expecting that there are even more room to grow for Arm future and Arm's business future.
Rene, Arm's CEO, recently attended and spoke at the CES, and he said, "AI is everywhere, and you can't run AI without Arm." I believe this is really the kind of time now that we're seeing such a trend, and we are very much convinced that the AI is really essential for many way. Now, I would like to turn to investment strategy and also about Vision Fund. Vision Fund, gain and loss on investments in the past three months, Vision Fund I, Vision Fund II, and LatAm Funds. Major part is from the Vision Fund I and II, but those three funds are actually showing us a very good and steady performance here. With total of those three funds, over JPY 600 billion or above of the gain.
For breakdowns for Vision Fund I compared to Vision Fund II, each ticket size of the each portfolio is relatively large, and also mainly for invested in later-stage unicorns. There are many successful cases in the past. For example, Arm is one of them. Coupang is also the good example. Now that we're seeing a good and strong performance from ByteDance, so ByteDance, so Vision Fund I is recording $1.9 billion dollars of the gain. Vision Fund II, $1.7 billion of the gain. This is mainly due to share price rise in public assets and also having up rounds of the financial rounds. Those are the major driver for the this result of Vision Fund II. In terms of LatAm, the share price rise in public assets is a good contributor.
For Vision Fund II, I would like to add a little bit more color because Vision Fund I has a longer history. Vision Fund II was about three years ago that we have started, and actually the try to distribute the money for our investments in the many places, we had some difficulties because of the environments and the market situation. But if you look at this slide on your right-hand side, this is the current. When you see the improvement in value, that's the blue bar, and those marked down were the red bar. On the far right, mark-up public companies are eight companies, and in dollar term $1,158 million. And marked down, the bottom of the red bar, you see nine companies has marked down. In dollar term $287 million.
So actually that the more companies are marked up, and also the more amounts are marked up compared to marked down. In private companies, 88 companies, 88 private companies' value are increased. In dollar terms, $1.7 billion. Marked down companies in private, 74 companies, in dollar terms, $929 million. So compared to the second quarter 2023, we have largely improved the quality of the portfolio companies. The main driver for the private company value up is the some improvements in business, also the peers improvement as well. But actually, the main driver was the round up of the financial rounds. And this is the by quarter of the gain and loss on investment, and in the past three quarters, three quarters consecutively, that they're increasing or improved.
The cumulative-wise, we are almost above the water, so very close to above the water now.
Our cumulative investment return, this is for our Vision Fund I. Invested $89.6 billion in total, and cumulative return is $106 billion. Of that, $64 billion exited, 18 public companies investment before exit. We are looking at great performance, and Vision Fund II cumulative investment return is shown here. Investment cost, $52 billion, and the cumulative investment return, $33 billion. So the performance is, well, underperforming, but it's been improving in the latest 3 months. Backed by a positive market condition, we believe that Vision Fund II performance will get even better. Talking about our funding rounds, this chart shows our funding rounds of private portfolio companies.
In 2023, they raised $8 billion, and 41 rounds took place, and up round was 48%. Almost a half of the companies, which is great. But, businesses that did financing or funding down round, well, it's not bad either. Even though it was down round, it means that they got trust from future investors, which is, I think, a great itself. Sometimes it's good to finance even though down round, because you cannot finance at all is the worst. So private equity market has turned around, and that has had a positive impact on those private portfolio companies' funding rounds. The investment amounts is shown here. In the third quarter, we invested only $0.3 billion, because we did not see many opportunities. But as a policy, we want to capture investment opportunities as much as possible.
That's why we have turned to offense mode as opposed to defense mode. We already reduced the investment. Important thing is to actively make investments. Of course, that requires lot of analysis, also requires lot of communications. Those groundwork is important before actually making investments. One or two investment examples here recently. One of them is Tractable, the other is Cato. Left-hand side is Tractable, which is AI-powered automation of insurance claims and damage assessments, enabling real-time condition assessments and accurate repair estimate via smartphone images.
... This is, I think, a very unique business model. The right-hand side is Cato Networks. This is security access service edge, optimally and securely connects all enterprise locations, users, and clouds. There are many more investments we did recently, but those are just what I wanted to pick up today. Last but not the least, I need to talk about this financial strategy before closing. For FY23, we keep this financial strategy adherent to financial policy, financial management, adaptable to both defense and offense policy. We have kept this policy for a long time, eh? Why don't you change policy depending on conditions? Some people suggest, for example, 25% to a year worth of bond redemption. Why don't you change those numbers? Well, some people criticize our policy.
I think a simple policy like this is important because it is the pillar for us to express ourselves. We are stable and we are reliable, and retail investors and retail end users, we need to make sure that they understand what we are doing easily. So again, maintaining LTV below 25% in normal terms, maintaining at least 2 years' worth of bond redemption in cash, and securing recurring distributions and dividend income from SVF and other subsidiaries. That remained our policy. To respond to defense and offense, we need to make sure that we have a strong policy in place so that it will allow us to be either defense or offense. And talking about capital allocation now, what would you like to use capital for? The slide shows new investment, shareholders' return, and a financial policy at the bottom.
What we want to do is to have an equal view on shareholders and the debt holders. In order for the company to grow, we need to make an investment, otherwise, we cannot grow. We need to strike a good balance. Even going deeper, net asset value, whether it is growing or not, that shows a track record of corporate growth and a NAV discount, which we showed you earlier. The gap between NAV and market cap, why there is a discount? There should be a reason why there is a discount. To put simply... trust, whether it's strong or weak in terms of in which direction NAV goes going forward. I think the message here is that we need to communicate more about what we are doing to address this discount.
What we can do to increase corporate value, one way is share buyback. Please take a look at this graph. We have done JPY 4.5 trillion worth shareholder buyback in total, sometimes JPY 0.6 trillion, JPY 2.5 trillion, JPY 1.4 trillion. When did do share buyback, share price went up, but right after the share buyback, the share price went down to pre-share buyback level. It was not sustainable, to be very honest with you. Why? Shouldn't we do something about it? We understand that the share buyback is an important tool to return to shareholders, and CEO Masa himself has over 30% of stake in the business. So the shareholder returns importance is well understood, not only by the management, but also CEO Masa himself. NAV is the thing that can show corporate growth.
In order to grow NAV, increase NAV, we need to be active in investment. So what we should do is here. We have JPY 4.4 trillion cash position, and we have JPY 19 trillion of net asset value. So while we are using cash position-
... backed by different types of assets, we can structure different leverage financing. In order for us to increase NAV, we need to make new investments for growth, and we need to focus on new investment at the moment. But as a investment company, we need to return to shareholders while this investment cycle is running well. Increasing NAV is the first step we should take before returning to shareholders. But again, let me repeat, we have done JPY 4.5 trillion of share buyback in the last five years. This trend, we want to keep the trend while making proactive investment. And as a investment company, for us to grow going forward, we will run a good cycle of investment and reinvestment, and making sure we return to shareholders. Summary. Net income, JPY 950 billion.
In the last quarter, we have done a lot of things, and we have moved forward. Thank you very much for your attention, and that's all for my presentation. Now, we'd like to have questions from yourself. Thank you very much.
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Thank you. I am Shikata from Nikkei Newspaper. I have two questions, so one by one. First, great performance. Does there any changes to your strategy of SVG? Any AI strategy has been highlighted, but any changes or any updates on your AI strategy for SVG?
Yes, share price increase is a kind of a short-term performance here, but what we are very much focusing is the AI, which is the most discussed agenda. And actually, Arm is a company who can make the best contribution to such an AI movements. And I believe that that has been valued. And because we have Arm in our group, we will be able to address AI move in a variety of the way. And also, having Arm in our group, that we'll be able to make a very specific steps towards the AI strategy. Masa is actually discussing, exploring AI strategy. He's trying to do many things, but anything that he would like to do always lead to Arm-based or chip or Arm technology.
So that's something that we always reminded ourselves that how Arm is important for our next steps or next progress. And I believe that that has been interpreted in the shape of share price, I believe. My... So AGI our strategy can be more involved for the because of the good results. And next question is about the net asset value discount. You also show some slide, so JPY 19 trillion of the asset value, and I believe you have about debt of JPY 2 trillion. So less debt is seventeen trillion yen, that's my assumption, and about JPY 8 trillion at the end of March. About JPY 8 trillion of the gap will be made between net asset value and market cap.
It may not be the simple question or simple answer, but the Vision Fund, JPY 7 trillion size. Looks like it's not counting Vision Fund at all. I believe that there are kind of an intransparency of the Vision Fund or the... People may not be enough trusting the Vision Fund performance, Vision Fund's growth. That's probably one of the reason for the discount. Do you have any message or do you have any comments about the Vision Fund activities going forward? The Vision Fund strategy, I believe, is very clear and simple. As an investment fund, focusing, setting the vision for AI and believe in the world to be utilizing AI in a variety of the ways.
There are companies that who are going to focus on AI or developing with AI, and that's the kind of the target for a Vision Fund to invest in. There are teams that are making an every effort. Of course, a year ago, two years ago, there were a time that we have to stop a little bit of time for the offense. This year, that we kind of shifting, but because we have experienced the difficult moment in the past two years, so that is why we have to be a little bit more careful, have to be a little bit of conservative. So that's why, as a result, that we are not showing more big numbers from the Vision Fund. And because performance comes along after our activities, that's why that, it comes even later, but not now.
I believe the biggest message for investors, I believe it, the most important things for the fund is performance, showing you the performance, which is not happening now, but the size is exceeding JPY 1 trillion. Also, we would like to spend enough time for the investment periods to show you the performance.
Next question. MJ from Bloomberg. First question about Arm. I have a question about how you treat Arm as assets. You have about 90% of Arm shares, and going forward, you may want to sell a little bit of Arm ownership, or using Arm shares, you may want to do asset-backed financing to make new investment. So... or which way, or what kind of idea do you have in terms of how you use Arm assets?
Yes, Arm is a public company, and whether sell or not, buy or not, in principle, I will not make comment on that. But I would just say Arm, in our group company, is the most important company for us. Like I keep saying, we are the company that has the biggest confidence in Arm's growth potential, and we want to value Arm asset. Of course, we can utilize Arm assets in different ways. For example, using Arm shares for margin loans. So Arm share as an asset from financing perspective is easier for us to utilize. So I think that there are a lot of options that we can select to support investment from financing perspective. Again, Arm is a great asset for us. I think that's something I can say now.
Maybe for Navneet about Vision Fund. We see that the investment figure is quite still very small, actually smaller than the previous quarter. We want to know if, when, if at all, the pace of investments could pick up, later this year or in the future. Thank you.
Thank you, MJ. We remain very focused on looking at opportunities in the AI space, but at the same time, we're being very prudent about finding the right opportunities at the right valuations. So our focus is on AI investing across all AI verticals, but there's a very high bar for investing. And we are also focused on unlocking our portfolio value. So, per the earlier question about the discount in net asset value and market cap, the Vision Funds and LatAm Funds have a fair value of $146 billion, and we want to make sure that the value is unlocked. And it also includes disciplined and consistent monetization. So it's not just, investing in new opportunities, but also, unlocking value and monetizing our portfolio.
But, recently, in the second half of 2023, we made investments in companies like TravelPerk, Tractable, Cato Networks, so we are ready to deploy capital when we see the right opportunities.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions, please? The very front row, in the right-hand side. Thank you. Yamaguchi from Mainichi Newspaper. It may be difficult for you to answer this question. I'd like to speak about Rakuten, other company. So in, in the coming two years, JPY 800 billion of the bond redemption is expected, and they are refinancing. And as a CFO, how do you look at the Rakuten status? And also, as a general opinion-wise, what is anything that you can comments that you care about? Comment to the other companies is really difficult. It can be very rude. I don't want to make any comments about others. I can talk about our company. So you mentioned that the is expecting the JPY 800 billion of the bond redemption.
So, when you speak of bond redemption, probably I can talk about our positions for the bond redemption. For example, our case as an issuer, we are quite a large issuer in terms of bonds, and especially for the retail bonds, retail investors, we have quite a large issuance as well. And for them, we don't want them to feel any risk at all when it comes to redemption. So when you see the redemptions, that I want them to invest us again, that's something that I would like them to feel. So that's why I believe it is important to show you what is the source for the redemption. So that's why we have a financial cash policy of cash positions, keeping cash position to cover at least a year of the bond redemption.
Because we have expiries every year, so that we have to show you what is the source for the redemption. You have a expiry date, we have money here, we can redeem you, we can pay you back. Or would you like to invest us again? Do you want us to prepare a same kind of instrument so that you can invest with us once again? As long as we can show you the source of the redemption, then the investors feel more safe and happy. If you don't have any other way to manage your assets, then that you'll be able to invest us again. I think that's very important, and if you go the other way, that's gonna be very tough.
We did experience a little bit of difficult time in the past as well, so that is why we would like to show you, we have more than enough room there to redeem. Because we are investment company, that is gonna be even more important, and I think that we would like to keep that a kind of policy. Also another question to Navneet. India Oyo IPO is expected. When do you think is going to be the time? I think that they are postponing the IPO timing.
We're very pleased with our India portfolio. In fact, FirstCry and Ola Electric filed for a listing in December of 2023. As you pointed out, Oyo is also expected in the coming year or so to go public.
Any reason why that they are postponing IPO event itself?
There is no rush. For all of our portfolio companies, they will go public when the time is right, and that means when they have the right controls in place, they have sustainable financial performance, and they are either on the path to profitability or are already profitable. So that timing will depend on that.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Any other question from the floor? If not, let me move on to Zoom. Again, please refrain from connecting to other live stream to avoid any echoing. And if you join, Zoom's, Japanese channel, please ask us question in Japanese. First question, Nagoshi-san from NHK, please unmute and speak, please. Thank you for taking my question. My name is Nagoshi from NHK. In the last quarter, third quarter of last year, Masa did not attend financial result announcement anymore, so he has been focusing on the growth of the business. I believe that. I wonder if you can share with us, the update on, Masa, what Masa is doing lately?
Well, what I didn't mention in the presentation, I think that what Masa is doing is one of the most interesting you may have. Every day, he has been pretty busy, as you can imagine. Although he isn't in front of you, but he is in the office, and every day, if necessary, I see him, I talk to him, and I listen to him. There are a lot of amazing stuff going on. The last presentation he had in front of you, at that time, he mentioned that he wanted to ensure Arm's growth and Arm's evolution. Arm's growth should be linked to the growth of the society, and that kind of broad, vast subject. In fact, not only one, but also multiple broad, big subjects are something that he is working on.
It may take time before making them bearing fruit, and it's been some time since he stopped showing himself to you.
... I hope he will come back to you sooner rather than later. I cannot say when, but I hope that you look forward to seeing him, once again in person sooner rather than later. I believe that what he is doing should contribute to a lot to SoftBank's corporate value, and we appreciate your patience.
Thank you. Different question, if I may. At the last quarter's financial results announcement, you mentioned a several investment by SoftBank Group, including autonomous vehicle business. I wonder, from SoftBank Group, are there any specific themes or subjects where you focus on investment? And can you share with us how many companies that you have made investment as a SoftBank Group?
Well, I am not updated as recent as now, but maybe automated warehouse business was something that we invested in. And AI is one of the biggest topics that we are looking at, obviously, and GenAI and logistics, manufacturing. Talking about the logistics, including transportation and autonomous driving. From factory through transportation to the final destination, and when it comes to manufacturing, specific cars or vehicles or robots. So there are a lot of things that can be presented to you as a result of AI evolution, and those are the subject that we are looking at. But investment opportunity does not come in order, so we are looking at wide varieties of area, but at the same time, whenever we have attractive business opportunities, we are not slow in talking to those founders.
If we want to have a long-term relationship, we use our balance sheet to make an investment in those businesses, and I think that kind of stance will remain the same for some time.
Well, follow-up question. Investment by SoftBank Vision Fund, investment by SoftBank Group may be different by nature, but as a SoftBank Group, going forward, the investment that you make, will you run your business going forward after investing in those businesses?
Yes, that is one option. Those invested companies can work with us as a long-term partner, or maybe we build a joint venture with them, and eventually we will have them as a group company, even though invested companies keep running the business. And as a holding company, we may manage them as investment. And we may transfer them to Vision Fund, or SoftBank Investment may be transferred to us. So we are open to different options that we can take.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next question from Mr. Hyuga from Bloomberg. Yes, this is Hyuga from Bloomberg. Thank you very much for your presentation today. In the beginning, you mentioned that you turned to profit, and you are relieved, you said. So, do you think that this is the next stage, you are in the next chapter? Or because the investment amount for the third quarter was relatively small, I believe that it was because of the prudent manner, but, is it because you couldn't find any good target for the investments, or you couldn't find good investments, or there are private equity investments and AI investments are happening here and there. Why the third quarter investment amount was relatively small? And also, what is your pipelines right now for the next quarter? Is it going to be, again, the small amount for the fourth quarter?
Can you share any pipelines that you have right now for the coming quarters?
So for this third quarter, actual amount for investment is small, like you said. However, I believe this happened to be, small or coincident, I would say, because many of our team members, look for the good target. There are many, discussion coming into Masa's, office as well. We do see a quite a large number of the pipelines too, but when it comes to the actual investment itself and also the decision-making for the investments and actual execution of the amounts-
... So this is the amount that we have executed at the very last stage, is shown here, which happened to be relatively small, but we may see the next quarter or next quarter on, that, these, that we are preparing or we are working on, can be coming out. So, because that we cannot really control, the investment timing, so investments, because we don't have an investment budget, many people ask us, but we, SoftBank Group or SoftBank, doesn't have a budget for the investment because there is nothing good about setting the budget for investment. Because when we have a good preparation, when we have a good target, good investment, investees, then we do execute the investments. And that, process was actually small this this quarter. That's the kind of, reason why.
In Japan, was only, you found only five or six investees in Japan from the Vision Fund. Do you see any potentials or any good possibility that you may be able to find a good investees in Japan from Vision Fund investment point of view? Goto-san, do you see any opportunities here in Japan? I don't specifically talk about any company's name or anything, but I think there are many attractive companies in Japan. Also, of course, my expectation, my feeling-wise, we wanna have more investments in Japan, too. We hope that we'll be able to support more and more in Japanese company, too.
We have energies, of course, that is going to be distributed to the world, and also, as you said, that the number of the investments that we have made in Japan is still less, so I hope that the good entrepreneurs in Japan is gonna grow going forward.
Thank you very much. That's all from... Questions from Zoom. Thank you very much. That concludes the SoftBank Group Corporation's earnings results announcement for the nine-month period ended December 31st, 2023. The video footage of this meeting will be distributed on demand from our corporate website. Thank you very much once again for joining the SoftBank Group Corp. earnings results announcement for the nine-month period ended December 31st, 2023.