Good morning, everyone. If you will excuse me, I will remove my mask and speak, as I take a PCR test immediately before this meeting. Once again, good morning, everyone. My name is Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. I would like to thank you for joining the meeting today with your. busy schedule. Now, with your permission, I will chair this meeting pursuant to the provision of Article 13 of the Articles of Incorporation. I will call the 42nd annual general meeting of shareholders of SoftBank Group Corp to order. We have set up a dedicated website for our shareholders to exercise their voting rights or post questions. In light of current status of COVID-19, we have decided to hold this meeting at the same venue with the visiting shareholders. Well, thank you for your attendance.
Our board director, Lip-Bu Tan, is attending through the web conference system. The agenda today is just set out on page three of the convocation notice of this annual general meeting of shareholders. I would like to inform you that the number of voting rights already constitutes the quorum. Now, we will inform you how the meeting will proceed. We will start by laying out the matters for reporting, outlining matters for approval, then we will discuss the business strategy, and move on to the Q&A session on matters for reporting and matters for approval. Then we will take a vote only on the matters for approval. Regarding your exercise of voting rights, visiting shareholders who have not yet exercised on the dedicated website will be asked to confirm by hand clapping. Online shareholders can exercise their voting rights at the dedicated website.
The dedicated website is open to accept your votes. Once you have exercised your voting rights, it is irreversible. After we explain the matters for approval and business strategy, we would like to accept questions and comments from the visiting shareholders. Questions and comments from visiting shareholders will be accepted at that time, and then move on to questions and comments from online shareholders next. The dedicated website is already available for posting questions and comments from shareholders. May I remind you that accepting your post will end five minutes after the start of the Q&A session. If there are any procedural motions, we take a vote on them altogether after we address questions and comments from the visiting shareholders. If there are any motions on amendments, it will be deliberated together with a proposal, and a vote will be taken on the proposal first.
We would like to limit to one question per shareholder and one motion per motion of the same type. Please post your question or motion within 200 characters or less. Thank you for your attention. Now I would like to take a vote on whether this approach is acceptable. For online shareholders, if you agree with the approach, please click on the clapping button. While we confirm the result, I would like to take a vote from visiting shareholders. If you agree with this approach, please clap your hands. Thank you very much. Please wait for a moment. We are confirming the result. Thank you very much. With the majority of shareholders agreed, we shall follow this approach. We just confirmed the result online shareholders as well. Thank you.
Details of the matters for reporting are set out on pages 23-71, and also available on our website. Now I would like to present you a summary video on our business overview.
[Foreign Language] 情報革命の資本家へ。2021年度のソフトバンクグループ株式会社は、情報革命の資本家として揺るぎないビジョンを持って様々な活動に取り組み、情報革命を牽引しました。2021年度の売上高は、前年度比10.5%増の6兆2,215億円となりました。一方、各国の金融引き締めや地政学リスク上昇などの影響を受け、当社グループ投資先の株価が軟調に推移したため、投資損失は3兆4,347億円となりました。純損失は1兆7,080億円となりました。中間配当の22円と合わせた2021年度の年間配当は1株当たり44円を予定しており、2022年度の配当は2021年度と同額を予定しております。ユニコーンを中心にAIを活用した成長可能性の大きな企業へ投資するSoftBank Vision Fund及びラテンアメリカファンドでは、2022年3月末までにSoftBank Vision Fund 1で94社、SoftBank Vision Fund 2で252社、SoftBank Latin America Fundで103社、合計449社への投資を実行しました。各国の金融引き締めや地政学リスクの高まりなどの影響もあり、投資先の公正価値が大幅に減少したことで、2021年度は合計3兆4,363億円の投資損失を計上しました。その結果、ファンドの活動開始以来の累計の投資利益は合計3兆473億円となりました。上場銘柄を中心とした投資先の売却や資金化などにより、Limited Partnerへの分配金の総額は5.3兆円となり、投資回収が着実に進んでいます。2022年3月末現在の運用資産総額は合計21.4兆円となり、未上場のテクノロジー企業へ投資する世界有数のファンドマネージャーとなりました。今後も投資先企業と緊密に連携しながら、経済の先行きが不透明な局面においても適切に対応し、情報革命を牽引してまいります。ソフトバンクグループ株式会社は戦略的投資持ち株会社として、直接または子会社を通じて投資活動や資金調達活動を実施。2021年度は1,041億円の投資利益を計上しました。Alibaba株式の先渡し売買契約にかかるデリバティブ関連利益1兆1,330億円の計上などにより、セグメント利益は9,659億円となりました。不安定な市場環境下においても、財務方針を堅持しつつ、Alibaba株式を活用した先渡し売買契約により、純額で131.7億米ドル、Arm株式を活用した借入により80億米ドルなど、着実に資金調達を実施しました。日本国内で主に通信事業を営むSoftBank Corp.は、引き続き成長戦略であるBeyond Carrierを推進。従来の通信キャリアの枠組みを超え、通信事業に加えてYahoo! Japan、Lineおよび新領域の三つの領域を伸ばすことで収益基盤の強化に取り組んでいます。SoftBank Corp.事業の2021年度のセグメント利益は、モバイルサービスの通信料値下げのマイナス影響があったものの、Yahoo! Japan・Line事業と法人事業の好調な推移により、前年度比3.8%増の8,801億円となりました。Yahoo! Japan・Line事業は、主にLineの子会社化に伴い、広告関連サービスを中心に売り上げが拡大しました。法人事業では、テレワーク需要の高まりを反映したモバイル売上の拡大に加え、企業のデジタル化が加速する中で、クラウドセキュリティ、デジタルマーケティングの売上が拡大。また、日本でスマートフォン決済サービスを手掛けるPayPay株式会社は、登録者数が順調に伸張を続け、累計4,700万人を突破。今後もデジタルの社会実装の実現に挑戦し、世界の人々が最も必要とするサービスやテクノロジーを提供する企業グループを目指していきます。半導体のIPのライセンス事業を営むArmは、2021年3月に新アーキテクチャArmv9を発表し、多くの企業での新しいチップ開発に採用されました。2021年のArmベースのチップ出荷数は290億個を突破し、過去最高を記録しました。その結果、2021年度の売上高は前年度比35%増の26億6,500万米ドルとなりました。また、調整後EBITDAは前年度比68%増の9億9,900万米ドルとなり、V字回復を果たしました。2022年2月にはArmの売却中止をNVIDIAと合意し、Armの株式上場の準備に入ることを発表。合わせてレネ・ハースCEO、Jason Child CFOを中心とした新経営体制も発表しました。Armは新しい経営陣のもと、高いシェアを誇るモバイル分野にとどまらず、クラウド、自動運転、IoT、メタバースにおける技術革新の中心となっていくことで、さらなる飛躍を目指していきます。2021年度は財務方針の堅持と投資事業の拡大再生産を可能にする財務運営を二つの大きな柱として掲げ、投資会社として最適な財務運営体制を確立しました。財務方針としては、通常時LTV 25%未満、異常時でも上限35%と十分な財務バッファーを確保し、運用。また、子会社からの継続的な配当収入やSoftBank Vision Fund 1と2から受け取る分配金などの収入を得ることで、少なくとも2年分の社債償還資金を手元資金として確保し、安全性を維持するよう努めています。2022年3月末のLTVは20.4%。手元流動性は今後2年分の社債償還資金1.3兆円を上回る2.9兆円と財務方針を堅持し、安定的に財務運営を行っております。投資活動では、分配金などの収入の一部を原資とし、SoftBank Vision Fundへ再投資するなど、投資と回収のサイクルを確立。このような財務運営と投資活動のバランスを見ながら、自己株式の取得を通した株主還元も行っています。2022年度も引き続き財務方針を堅持しつつ、外部環境を見極めながら柔軟かつ機動的な財務運営を継続していきます。社会の持続的な発展とソフトバンクグループの中長期的な成長のため、環境、社会、ガバナンスに関する様々な取り組みを行っています。新型コロナウイルス対応では、国や自治体が進める検査体制確保への貢献を目指し、移動式PCR検査車を開発。ワクチンの職域接種大規模会場の運営にも取り組みました。また、気候変動対応では、ソフトバンクグループ株式会社は温室効果ガス排出量を実質ゼロにするCarbon Neutralを2020年度に達成。さらに、本年6月には、2030年度までにグループ全体としてCarbon Neutralを達成するという目標を新たに掲げ、達成に向けて取り組んでいます。今後も持続可能な社会の実現に向けて、情報革命をリードする企業としての責任を果たしていきます。ソフトバンクグループ株式会社は、未来を創る情報革命の資本家として、新しいビジネスモデルやテクノロジーの発展を加速させ、株主価値の最大化を目指し、これからも邁進していきます。情報革命で人々を幸せに。
Thank you very much for your attention. Now I'd like to present the matters for approval. Proposal one is appropriation of surplus. Details are set out on page seven of the convocation notice. Proposal two is partial amendment to the articles of incorporation. Details are set out on pages 8 to 10 of the convocation notice. Proposal three is election of nine board of directors. Details are set out on the pages 11 to 19 of the convocation notice. Now I'd like to present our business strategy. This shows how SoftBank Group's stock performed since last year's AGM. If we took last year's AGM as 100, current level is 65, which is decline. I'm not saying an excuse, but looking around the world, put into perspective. NASDAQ Golden Dragon China Index, which affects companies like Alibaba.
Those are listed in the US, especially those listed on NASDAQ, China-related companies. The index is like this. If you look at NASDAQ Composite Index, that's how they have been performed. Of equity held by SoftBank Group, mainly those are in the US and China. As you can see, we are in the middle of red and blue line. I understand you know very well why these stock prices perform this way. SoftBank Group that owns global stocks have been performing like this in terms of stock price. The shareholders visiting at the venue and shareholders joining us online, I think they are interested most is whether or not stock SoftBank Group's share price will go up or not. This is the ultimate question that you may want to ask us. From shareholders' interest perspective.
Again, will the SoftBank Group share price go up or down? Well, it's hard to predict stock price tomorrow, next year. I have been running business for over 40 years, and stock price today, next year, it's hard to predict, even for me, because there are a lot of factors that could have an impact on stock prices. But if you look at the long-term trend, maybe you see a different story. SoftBank Group share price since listing has been performing like this. Again, you can see ups and downs. But overall, in the long run, trend-wise, it's been increasing. In relation to SoftBank Group's net asset value. Those are correlated. SoftBank Group's share price is correlated most to SoftBank Group's net asset value or NAV. NAV is indicated in light blue. What is NAV, some people may ask.
If I may remind you, NAV stands for net asset value. Again, net asset value or NAV is what I'm talking about. What is net asset value? Simply put, shareholders joining us today at the venue and online, you are SoftBank's shareholder. That's something in common. As an investor, let's say you have a SoftBank Group stock worth JPY 1 million. Your total investment value is JPY 10 million, including other stocks and our stocks. You also have debt or borrowing JPY 2 million. Net-wise, your net asset is JPY 8 million. 10 minus 8 is your net asset value. NAV, net asset value for you Japanese, maybe it's difficult to understand, but NAV is quite simple. Just one word. The shareholdings minus debt is your net asset value.
Again, if you have several stocks, which is your asset, and those stocks price go up and down, that's seen as a SoftBank Group's. SoftBank Group wants to be an investor in information revolution. SoftBank Group is like you, investor. As a business, we have a SoftBank Corp and the Group. That's an aspect of SoftBank Group's business organization. SoftBank Group is also investor. Our job is to increase equity holding. No matter how much you have equity holding, you have to deduct debt or borrowing to calculate our net asset value. SoftBank Group's share price should be in proportion to or correlated to net asset value. If you want to predict SoftBank Group share price, you need to look at whether SoftBank Group's NAV will go up or down because they are correlated.
It's hard to understand SoftBank Group's balance sheet or P&L. Some people may say they are too complicated. Even experts say our P&L and financial information is too complicated. Balance sheet is complicated, P&L is complicated. If you say they are uncomplicated, look at NAV. I think that's how I look at our value, our company. Again, NAV is very important. What does NAV or what is NAV correlated most to? It's most correlated to the internet traffic. Why? As a business leader, I would say that we have been in line with companies that are most advanced in the efforts of information revolution. We are not investing in land or buildings or other stuff. Information revolution, and specifically businesses and companies most advanced in information revolution are the companies that we invest in. Who are most advanced in information revolution? The internet.
Among them, AI is the most advanced in terms of information revolution. SoftBank has been walking along with or waving along with most advanced businesses and companies in, excuse me, information revolution. As internet traffic goes up or as information revolution evolves, automatically, SoftBank Group's NAV should increase. That's my sole focus. I have no doubt at all. No matter what changes take place, I have never been doubtful since I started the business. Information revolution should have come. Since internet has started, I have been believing that internet traffic, internet users, internet usage will definitely go up. Newton says that everything should be gravitated to gravity. Likewise, internet should increase. The number of users go up, the traffic goes up, and information revolution should expand. Like somebody or people believe in Newton, I believe in information revolution.
We have been focusing on only information revolution and who are most advanced. Sometimes we fail, and there are a lot of things that I should have learned and, but my belief stayed the same. How will the internet traffic go? They keep growing. It's not gonna go down or up, so they keep going up. Internet traffic should definitely go up. That's why I have no doubt. Internet traffic may go down next year or go down in ten years. I might have doubt, but I don't have that doubt at all, because I believe internet traffic keeps going up and up. Whether net bubble burst or the financial crisis took place, I have no doubt the internet revolution keeps evolving and AI keeps evolving. What do I invest in? I invest in evolution. I believe in evolution.
I believe in vision of evolution. That's where I invest. As an investor, as an capitalist, we provide risk capital, like in a venture capital. We invest in evolution. There are varieties of types of investors. Some investors trade against evolution. Some investors are contrarian. I think they will get hurt a lot. You can't trade against evolution. Because, vehicles should win over horses. Vehicles or cars beat horses. If you say that, "Well, maybe horses will come back," or they don't understand. If you say that, the age will go back to the era of horses or paper. No. If you invest against evolution, that's very dangerous and risky. As an investor, I just simply invest in revolution. Again, we invest in evolution. AI is most advanced in evolution. The most advanced in AI.
The evolution is AI, and as a capitalist providing risk capital, we invest in SoftBank Vision Fund and Arm. I'm gonna talk more about Arm later, but let me start from SoftBank Vision Fund. As you saw in the video earlier, companies using AI, autonomous driving and medical and logistics. There are a lot of businesses that utilize AI. Unicorns, as you know, are private with JPY 100 billion worth value, and they are rapidly growing. They're not just small and medium-sized enterprises. Traditional simple SMEs may stay SMEs. Difference between unicorns and SMEs are, even though the size may be the same, but unicorns have vision for evolution and ambition for evolution, and they have a big dream. They want to fly over the big sky. That kind of ambitious vision is something that traditional SMEs don't have.
Those small, traditional, medium-sized enterprises are horses, and unicorns have horn and wings. Well, I know unicorns are not actual animals, real animals, but again, unicorns have a vision, big dream, and technologies. Those are unicorns. When it comes to information revolutions, we try to identify unicorns across the globe to be most advanced information revolution. We are major shareholders of many of the biggest unicorns. SoftBank Vision Fund is the biggest investor in terms of investment in unicorns, globally.
20 years ago, 30 years ago, there were a lot of number ones in Japan, or some people would say Japan as number one. There were a lot of Japanese companies that were number one in the world. Now, SoftBank Group is the world biggest investor in AI unicorns, or unicorns focusing on AI. We focus on the most advanced sectors of information revolutions and AI. You are shareholders. You are investors. I am an investor, so we are the same animals. Well, I don't know if as a hobby or as a business or for your core business, you may invest in some companies, and I invest in 470-something companies. I think that I am more committed and more serious about those investments compared to small investors.
Anyway, we, SoftBank Vision Fund, invest in 475 companies that are most advanced in AI globally. That's Vision Fund. Next is when you look at the future development of SoftBank Group, I believe this is it. This is, of course, here, Miyauchi-san is here. SoftBank Corp is the original start or the heart core of the business. That relationship does not really change between SoftBank Group Corp and SoftBank Corp. We have a new and young CEO, Mr. Junichi Miyakawa, with his support and strengths that I believe they're gonna make a good development. Actually, this is a new engine, and for sure our important engine is going to be Vision Fund and Arm.
I just mentioned about Vision Fund, let me explain you about last year, at AGM last year that I didn't really touch on much of the Arm. Because that moment, we were talking about or having a discussion with NVIDIA. At that time, we were in the pandemic situation, and there was difficult markets, so that was a bit tough time. Fortunately, main countries like U.S. and European countries, they against the idea of NVIDIA acquiring Arm. Each government or respective government was against the idea, because NVIDIA, if they acquire Arm, they're gonna be too strong. They're gonna be the strongest. That's why we couldn't receive the regulatory approval. Right now, I think without any excuse, it was a good result.
It was a good thing for us that we couldn't receive the regulatory approval, honestly speaking, because Arm is the core and also completely aligned with the increase of internet traffic. Do you see this blue bar? These are the number of Arm-based chips shipped. These numbers does not go ups and downs. Actually, this goes along with internet traffic. I believe this is the one of the company who is very much aligned with the trend of internet traffic. You see a smartphone, I believe that most of you has a smartphone, and the smartphone around the world actually are mounted with Arm chips or Arm engine. Arm is actually providing such CPU. When it comes to notebook PCs and mobile devices, Arm is already taking 95% of market share.
This smartphone revolution, of course, there are many applications around, but for example, displays, memories, there are many things. Actually, the core or the engine itself is Arm, using Arm. I will say that Arm actually was a driving force for the smartphone revolution, and it has been, and it will be. In addition to that, not only the smartphone, but I believe all aspects of revolutions, all aspects of sectors is gonna create the revolution with Arm chip. For example, cloud. CPUs of cloud were mainly using Intel and AMD. For AMD, it's like similar things to Intel. Intel compatible, Intel architecture compatible, I would say, is AMD. That Intel architecture was almost taking 100% market share until we acquire Arm.
Back then, cloud share by Arm was, I would say, 0%. After our acquisition of Arm, we have hired cloud engineers for the development of cloud chips. As of today, what happened? Actually, the number one cloud company, which is Amazon AWS. Leading-edge technologies by Amazon are actually using Arm for its cloud. Number one, Amazon is using, and also the competitors with Amazon are now starting to use Arm, and this is just the beginning. We believe it is going to be more and more Arm shares. Because if you remember why smartphone Arm was able to take a good market share in smartphone, it is because very cost effective and power effective. Biggest cost for cloud is actually not the chip cost, but the power cost.
Not the human resource cost, but this is electricity cost. Not the site cost, but actually electricity cost. Cloud equals to electricity cost. When you change to Arm, you can save much of the electricity cost. That's why Amazon decide to switch to Arm cloud. Once Amazon changes to Arm, other competitors also follow suit. CPU computer power, you may say that the Intel is better. Actually, that's completely misunderstanding. Because number one supercomputer, CPU, is Fugaku by Fujitsu. CPU Fugaku is actually using Arm. Everything is Arm there. Arm chip is being placed to create this world number one supercomputer. Amazon also see importance in computing power. If computer power is inferior, they don't decide to switch to Arm. We believe we will be able to see more and more Arm user in cloud sector.
Next is automotive. Automotive, in the past, the car does not really calculate or car doesn't really compute. You just have engine, you just have gas, and you just have tires. That's a kind of a basic technology. Actually, leading-edge technology automotive needs to use, needs to have brain. You have to be able to park automatically. You have to be able to check the risk, or need to have an autonomous drive. There are many things that the car has to do. Recently, EV, like, Teslas, it's like a running supercomputer. You have auto navigations, functions and everything. I believe there will be more and more running or driving supercomputer. The biggest cost for such is, I would say 40% is battery. Smartphone, also the power consumption was important.
Cloud, again, electricity cost was important. EV, again, battery is gonna be important. 40% is the electricity cost. How can you save electricity is going to be very important because they gotta compute a lot. Computing a lot, but at the same time does not eat up the electricity, then your choice will be Arm. The common interest is that you can save the good cost of electricity, and you'll be able to provide the service. Next is IoT. This is exactly the things that run by electricity. Saving power is a key for this area as well. Right after our acquisition of Arm, IoT market share in Arm was very small back then. Right now, actually became overwhelming number one.
This is what Arm is, has a presence in IoT, and I believe this is gonna be better and better. Leading information revolution, becoming engine for information revolution, I would say Arm is going to be the one for those. I believe Arm is going to be the core of the core of the SoftBank Group. That's my understanding so far. Invest in technology evolution, meaning that the leading evolution is Vision Fund and Arm. As I mentioned in the beginning, will the SoftBank share price go up? That question, I would say yes. That's my short answer, and I am investing in. But sometimes it drops as well from time to time. For example, back in 2000, Internet bubble burst.
Less than 10 years, so 1994 index as one, it became 30 times. One became 30 less than 10 years. If you buy any shares, keeping that 10 years, and if you're here, it's gonna become 30x . You're gonna be so happy, right? If you invest JPY 10 million, then that's gonna be JPY 100 million, JPY 30 million. That's a quite a big increase. That's why we call it Internet bubble. In 2000, the Internet bubble burst. It became one-third. SoftBank Group share price became a 1/100. Many of the shareholders are very upset that they have been calling me liars and everything. Still, we are able to survive.
When you look at the equity value of the overall Internet industry, it became one-third. After that, again, in less than 10 years, 10 became 100. Without spending 10 years, actually 10 became 100. This 100, with financial crisis, it dropped again. How much dropped? It became halved. Actually, this graph was used at the previous earnings results announcement. You may say I'm using the same slides again, so Masa getting old and you, Masa is speaking same story once again and again. Actually, from time to time, that the people may not be able to believe in SoftBank Group share. I understand that you may feel that way from time to time. That is why I need to repeat this again and again. I think it's worth you hear.
You may be tired of this slide, but you may know all of these. Maybe once that you hear this again and again, then you start believing in. That is why I repeating my story again and again, here again. That's how I believe this slide is very important. That's why I repeating these slides using again. 100 became 50 at the global financial crisis. This time, it's not only the Internet equi stocks, but also the other stocks are also fall down. As of today, maybe something similar to this trend, so 100 becomes 50. That's the kind of a trend that we're seeing right now as well. Very much similar. After then, you see, in 10 years, 50 became 2,400. 2,400 again.
If you look back, 1 became 2,000. That's a lot. If you knew earlier, you would like to, you wanted to know this 10 years before, 20 years before. You may say that. For your reference, when I found SoftBank Group, I was 100% shareholder of this company. It was 10 million JPY of the capital. Right now, my share ownership of shareholding is 30-some%, but back then was 100%. Because I believe in the company so much, that's why we don't want to sell. Our value of the share becomes so much, so 1 became 2,000. That's quite normal for me. At the time of IPO of SoftBank Group was 200 billion JPY. 200 billion JPY is now about 20 trillion JPY of the value.
I think it was not bad at all. When you look at the long term, maybe you can reduce your doubt. That's if you invest against evolution, then you'll be disappointed. When you see the pink colors portion that drop, you may sell short. Not only normally sell, but you may sell short then. Tentatively, you may have a good time, but if that continues five to 10 years, then that's gonna make you a terrible loss. That's why I don't recommend invest against evolution. I would be investing in evolution. Maybe I'm speaking too much, but let me continue though. I would like to continue. Maybe once I start saying these kind of things that I repeat, I repeat these kind of things so many times.
Again, 2,400 became 1,400. You may see this as surprising, and you may be very disappointed, but at the time of financial crisis, it became half. At the time of internet bubble burst, it became one-third. Here, it's not. This is the third time, but again, you will see, I believe that this is gonna go up again, and I have no doubt about that. I believe in my vision, and I have no doubt about my vision because this is just beginning of internet traffic. This is just the dawn of internet revolution. 1920, automotive era is probably something similar, that we see this time, and now that this is just the beginning. That's how I believe and how I see the situation.
Investing in evolution, but when you see the drop or decline, you may not see the bottom yet. You may see another bottom. That, I understand too. When you see that keep declining, how should we have a measure for those risk scenario? If you have a SoftBank shares, you have to margin trade for SoftBank Group share, then you may want to careful. Sometimes that, I understand banks can lend you money. You may be able to lend the money up to 50% or 70%. But usually 50% that you'll be able to borrow money. If you buy, borrow 50% and buy SoftBank Group Corp shares on margin, and if you see the volatility, that's gonna be very risky.
You may want to spend enough time. You may want to have a good sleep, and hopefully that we can have a longer relationship. You may see the TV commercial saying that, "Love me a little bit, love me long." You can borrow a little bit, and you want, I want you to hold long. That's how I feel for shareholders of SoftBank Group, because if you keep it long, I'm a believer that that's gonna increase. How we address risk? In one word, loan-to-value, LTV. This is the word that I repeatedly call out. NAV, net asset value, and LTV, loan to value. What is loan to value? Again, this is an English word. Loan to value. We call it LTV, and what is it? How much debt do you have against your asset value?
Mention about buy on margin, and if you borrow 50%, then loan to value-wise, that's gonna be 50%. That's gonna give you 50% of loan to value. If you have JPY 1 million of SoftBank Group Corp., and if you borrow five hundred thousand yen, then loan to value is gonna be 50%. How much money you borrowed against your asset, that's how you calculate loan to value. This is the ratio of debt against your assets. SoftBank Group, as an investor, we do sometimes buy on margin, and we would like to manage this loan to value less than 25% in normal time. Even in emergency, we do not exceed 35%. That's my rule, my internal rule. That's the financial plan of SoftBank Group.
Even in an emergency, we don't exceed 35%. In normal times, we manage loan to value less than 25%. That's the loan to value of our policy. To appropriately manage loan to value, and if you'd want to stop increasing loan to value too much, we do need to have appropriate monetization. If the loan to value increase too much, if you borrow money too much, then you need to sell. You need to monetize. That's appropriate monetization. When market is uneasy, if market is risky, then we do need to have a strictly selected investments. Don't buy too much, or don't buy whatever it is. That's not only for me, I believe that's for you, a good advice for you. That's our discipline as an vision capitalist.
One, once you see the sign of increase in loan to value, we need to sell. We need to monetize so that we can lighten our burden. If the loan to value increase, the new investment may need to be super careful and selective. That's very natural things to say. That such natural things we are trying to do as on our discipline. Once we see the down of equity market and 100 became 65, and our value of the asset decreased, so not increasing debt. However, because the decrease of the asset value, therefore, the loan to value is increasing. Now, once we come to 22%, then people may say that we are very much coming close to 25.
We definitely have a discipline of not exceeding 35% for sure, but 25% when it comes to LTV, we do need to manage well the loan to value so that we can lower loan to value to 20.4%. When equity market is so volatile, not increasing our debt, but decrease our borrowing, and that's how we manage our loan to value. Of course, we have enough cash position. Even try to reduce the borrowings, but we cannot redeem the bonds immediately because they have maturities. That's why we try to keep the good cash position. Once we monetize something, we will receive the cash position, and we can pile up the cash position.
When the situation is uneasy and risky, we need to keep the good cash position by monetizing the asset on earlier basis. Now that the cash position, we have about JPY 2.9 trillion. Also, we have a financial policy to keep the cash position to cover two-year equivalent of the bond redemption. Keeping cash position to cover two years equivalent of bond redemption on a cash basis. Always keep the cash to be able to repay the bonds. That's the internal guidelines for, or the policy for us. Sometimes, it's quite close to only two years equivalent, but now that the market is uneasy, so we actually try to have a much headroom there for our cash position.
1.3 trillion JPY is the two years equivalent, and right now, even bigger the amount of that is now on our cash position. This is the last page. Simply put, invest in evolution. We do not invest against evolution. That's gonna ruin you if you invest against evolution. We always invest in evolution for long-term period. When the market is uneasy, I don't have a 50% loan to value. Maybe 20%. If you have JPY 1 million of the shares, and if you have a debt of JPY 200,000, I think that's something acceptable. That we like to manage to the loan to value less than 25%, never be like 50% or anything like that. That's our internal discipline, internal financial policy.
Whenever we see uneasy of the market, we very much focus on our loan to value commitment and keep our financial discipline. For long-term period, this is our confidence. I have no doubt about my vision. I have no doubt about my confidence. At the same time, for short-term period, we are very much careful about management of such financial index. You can have a good sleep at night. I can sleep at night very well. That's what I can say with those internal policies. When we talk about such, these days, Masa always speak about money, money. Where is Masa as an entrepreneur goes? I don't like such Masa. I don't want to see such Masa. I understand when you say those. Recently, other than my job, my hobby is playing golf.
This is really sad. Golf course, I used to go. I from time to time go there, visit there from time to time, but scenery is different. When you hit the driver and when you your second shot, your scenery is different meaning that you cannot get the distance. When I was young, I was able to hit so long, but now the scenery is different. People getting old. Operating company, ups and downs, there are many things you need to operate every day. I believe CEO has to be young. People may say, "How far are you going to do?" I believe the operating company should be led by young and energetic people.
When you play golf, that I believe that a CEO has to be able to hit so long distance. But even that I cannot get distance these days, but at least when I play with amateur, I don't recall once I lost the game. Getting old me doesn't mean I lose the game, but actually make you smarter. You don't stretch too much. Actually, not bad at all at the end. I'm becoming smarter player. Even you get old, there are things that you can do, which is investment here. Body gets old, of course, and you cannot get distance for the golf, but I have so much motivation to work. Even now, I'm looking at the 10 years ahead.
want you to look at me 15 years ahead, 30 years ahead, 50 years ahead of the company. Information revolution is just the beginning. What we wanted to do, what I wanted to prove, that's still I feel that way. Even playing golf, but still I play with young people too, but I'm always motivated to win the game, not lose. Most actually, I always win. I would say I'm still full of energy, full of confidence, full of dreams. That's how that's me. Only hairs that goes away, but still. I'm still in the full energy, thank you very much for your continuous support.
Well, that was my presentation, and my staff has been pushing me to stop, but I kept going. Sorry about that. Anyway, we'd like to move on to the Q&A session. We will inform you how the Q&A session will proceed.
We'd like to take questions first from the visiting shareholders, then the questions sent from the dedicated website. We'd like to limit to one question per one shareholder. Please note that your input on the dedicated website will close in five minutes from now. From the floor, we will take up to six shareholders. If your names are called out, a staff will take you to the speaker's table. Please speak one by one. Before you make a statement, please only state the number on your entry card. You do not need to give your name. Thank you. We'd like to proceed in that manner.
Now, shareholders from the floor. Please raise your hand if you wish to make a comment. Anybody else?
Sorry, I was speaking too long, and I would recommend you to speak up as well. Thank you. Thank you for asking questions. Let us go to the first question. Please go ahead. My entry card number is number three. Passionate speech. Thank you very much. I'm so happy and impressed to be able to hear your live speech. You said that the five years, 10 years, 20 years ahead, and Warren Buffett is now age of 91, so hopefully you, Son-san, are gonna lead the company so that you can be the star of hope for the people around the world. My question, 475 companies as a portfolio company of Vision Fund, as you said, and is there any company which can exceed Alibaba?
Is there many of companies that can exceed Alibaba? That's my question.
Exceeding Alibaba out of 475, maybe one or two. If it goes well, three, I would say. Not less than 1%, I would say. one or two, if they become such a success, then that's gonna give us a return for everything. Vision Fund's policy is not as investing in early stage. We have a new candidates of the directors of the board, Mr. David Chao, and he is actually the venture capitalist who focus on early stage. Venture capital focusing early stage, I think their own role, so they discover the new company, guiding, leading them, and raise them. That's the kind of the role for the venture early stage venture capitalists.
For our role, once they became bigger, once they come to unicorn level, but pre-IPO, those are the companies that we focus on to invest in. It may be more than one or two companies out of 100 can be a candidate for next Alibaba. For early stage case, I would say 1 out of 1,000 to be able to find Alibaba type of success. In our case, a Vision Fund focus on late stage, those to the unicorn or those companies, so that I would say the possibility is higher to be able to find the next Alibaba. Private, a high growth, and keep growing and possibility exceeding Alibaba, then I would say Arm is the one.
Arm is going to be tremendously big and huge company, something equivalent to GAFA type of companies in the future. I believe Arm has such a possibility to grow that way. I very much believe in my hypothesis there. In one word, Arm is the one. Other than Arm, out of 475 Vision Funds, I would say one, two, or three companies who may be able to fund the next Alibaba. You don't have to go Alibaba level, but still JPY 10 trillion, JPY 20 trillion type of growth company will be able to see. I hope I answer your questions. 100 years in leading the company, maybe that's gonna be, and my body's gonna be coming along with me, so I don't know about that.
At least I want to, as an entrepreneur, I may, I may be too old, but as an investor, Masayoshi Son, or as a venture capitalist, Masayoshi Son, I still full of energy. That's something I can tell you now. Speaking of golf, about just a few years ago, I was, score was 68. I don't know if you play golf or not, 68 is quite a great result. Amateur. I'm amateur and my score was 68, and I believe there is not much people can do the same. That's how I'm full of energy, and maybe I still have some techniques to play a good golf. When we use brain, I think I still if I'm capable. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question.
My entry number is 26. I have been your shareholder for 21 years, and I am appreciative of your stock price. I am so happy to attend the AGM physically and appreciate staff's efforts to make this happen. I am interested in Arm, like you, and I have a question about Arm. Things like smart city, carbon neutrality, looking at future internet traffic increase, we believe that Arm has a tremendous potential in terms of technology and management team and talent. Arm was based in Cambridge in U.K., and in U.K., they were the star in U.K. from investor's perspective and people's perspective. I wonder if you think about listing Arm in London, is it one of the options that you may consider? Thank you.
21 years. How old are you? 40-something? 49 years old. Wow, you look young. You have had our share for 21 years, so you purchased our share in your 20s. Wow. I'm sure you have gone through a lot of doubts, concerns. You kept adding our shares. Wow. Even Ken Miyauchi had a lot of doubts. Well, I'm full of doubts, Ken Miyauchi said. A shareholder like him. We have seen a lot of ups and downs in our performance. You purchased at high, and you went through the bottom and came back. I'm so impressed. Someone like him is our comrade. We share the same vision. Thank you very much, seriously. You are young, still in 40s. Well, keep buying more shares of ours. Well, not so much volume trading, though.
I hope that you keep holding and increase. Question about Arm. Again, impressed how knowledgeable you are about Arm. Yes, a lot of people in the U.K. ask me to have Arm listed in London. A lot of requests which I appreciate, and I'm grateful for. Most of Arm's clients are based in Silicon Valley. Talking about U.S., stock markets in the U.S. would love to have Arm. Those are the requests coming from the U.S. Again, I am, and we are so grateful for such an appetite. We have not made any decision. We are given advice by experts and bankers from accounting standard perspective, from regulations perspective, what's the best option for Arm. We are still studying. NASDAQ is most likely, but we have not made any decision. We are looking at a lot of factors.
We will continue studying before making a final decision. Thank you very much for your question.
Yeah.
Next question, please.
Yeah.
My number is eleven. I'm just a five-year-old shareholder of yours, and I have one question. Vision Fund, you have more than 400 companies invested by Vision Fund, out of which, what is your special interest company, or what is your favorite one? And also, can you explain the background of that too? Because when I hear your presentation, I start having an interest over those companies, and now increasing our investment, my investment in those. I would like to hear if you have any focus or interesting highlights of the company out of 475. Yes, thank you very much for your question. 475. All companies, one by one, before we invest in those companies, I myself personally have communication.
Either we have a meeting in person, or we have a Zoom call with the founders or management of the company, then we decide whether to invest or not. I have met all of them, and every time when we have a meeting, I hear their speech, and I always impressed. We invest in companies, those that I was impressed. Their speech or their presentation give me makes me excited about the company. A few days later that I may calm down and think again, but there are many exciting companies out there. If you ask me to pick two or three, that's a bit difficult because once I see this is great company, but sometimes they cannot grow as much as we expected.
Sometimes, some of the company's growth rate slow down. Sometimes, we didn't expect too much, but they grow later on. It's like semifinal or quarterfinal of the baseball game at the high school. Once they go to professional baseball, like a SoftBank Hawks, Mr Kodai Senga , other players, they were not really the leading caliber from the team, but actually they make a development dramatically and became the great player. Unicorn pre-IPO, 475, and if you ask me to pick one or two, that's quite a difficult choice. What I can say, among these companies, actually we review the valuation of those companies daily basis after investment. Public companies of those has a price every day, so we check every day.
The share of SoftBank Group is consist of our value of our assets hold, like Alibaba or Arm or Vision Fund or. It's about JPY 20 trillion over. This debt. We still have about JPY 20 trillion level, but our market cap is JPY 8 point some trillion. You can buy our shares less than 50%. If you are interested, and if I pick up one or two, because they are private companies, so you cannot buy. Arm is great company, but you cannot buy because they are private still. You can buy our company because we are public, and automatically you'll be able to actually effectively, you are also investing in Arm, you are investing in Alibaba, or investing in those portfolio company or Vision Fund with less than 50% of the price.
You can see this discount. You can buy those companies through purchasing our shares, and that give you, I believe, some kind of safety reasons. Picking up two or three company out of 475, that's still difficult, so my answer was a bit indirect, but I can put it that way. I'd like to go to the next one.
Anyone, please? Anyone else? Here's the last question from the floor, and then questions from shareholders online will follow. This is the last question from the floor.
Thank you for taking my question. My entry number is 27. It's best to hear from you in person. My question is, Matsuo-san, one of your board members, because Son-san kept mentioning AI, and Dr. Matsuo, I think, you as a board director, what's your view on Son-san's vision? I'd like to hear from what Matsuo-san thinks.
Dr. Matsuo, as you know, he is Professor of The University of Tokyo, and he is most prominent in the area of AI. Matsuo-san, please feel free to take off your mask.
Thank you very much for your question. While talking about AI, like Mr. Masa mentioned earlier, traffic keeps growing, and internet keeps evolving. That's definitely for sure. On top of that, AI technology has evolved in the last one, two years, or even in a few months, especially natural language like GPT-3. Even after that version or technology, a lot of good models are coming up. Me, as an expert, from my perspective going forward, technological evolution will keep happening. At this moment, there are a lot of things that AI technology cannot do, but going forward, there are many more things that AI technology can do. From that perspective, invest in such trend or evolution, like, Mr. Masa says, is a right way, I think.
Dr. Matsuo, yes, he is the leading expert of AI, and he has great insights and expertise. As a SoftBank's board director, we would keep asking for his guidance. That was the last question from the floor.
Next, we would like to address questions received on the dedicated website today. We will read out that question first.
Yes, first question. You asked us to take a longer view of the stock price, but how many more decades do we have to wait? I think management is not moving fast enough. I want you to focus only on the market cap, not NAV, which is a pie in the sky or castle in the sky.
Quite a tough question and an eye-opening question. Thank you very much. Face-to-face, if you are close to me, then that may be difficult to ask me tough question. Over the internet, probably you can ask a very tough question to me. Thank you. Thank you for the question. This person, I believe, have pointed out several things. Long view on stock price and how many more decades we have to wait. Many more decades, maybe not decades, I believe, but not 6 months, 18 months. That may be difficult to expect our share price. That's how difficult it is to predict. If there is anybody who know, this person is gonna be genius, right? Because it's difficult to expect and predict, that's why everybody's have a difficult time.
five to 10 years, if we look at the long view, I'm quite confident. Many decades, maybe not, but five to 10 years. It's peaches, chestnuts take three years, and persimmons eight years to bear fruit. That's how you may need to wait to see fruitful result. That's how I have a confidence in and hope you see the same way. You, the questioner said that NAV is a pie in the sky, but actually NAV is equal to market cap. As I explained earlier, NAV, because this is English word, so you may be confused, may not be having the right understanding. Actually NAV equals to market cap. We just take the debt out from NAV. Market cap or the NAV actually is about the same thing.
Only the difference is debt or the borrowings. If you take the borrowing out from the market cap, that gives you the NAV. It's not a pie in the sky. Actually, NAV is the value that you should be looking at to measure our company. To increase NAV or to increase market cap, not only chasing for money, but we would like to create a future to then we are the vision capitalist to create the future. That is why we always stick to information revolution, AI, and only the leading-edge technology company is the kind of a target for a company to invest. Hope you understand that way. Next question. The value of SoftBank Vision Fund's portfolio company seems significantly decreased. What is your plan for the Vision Fund? Yes, it's decreased.
Looking at listed companies globally, most of them have lost their values in the last 18 months or so. Like I explained in the presentation earlier, most companies' values decreased, including SoftBank Group. My vision, my belief stay the same, have not shaken at all. Again, we are not gonna invest against evolution. We are going to invest in evolution, while making sure that LTV is at the right level, less than 25%, like I keep saying. That's the policy we are committed to, and drive safely. When there are risks, you turn the light on when driving in the evening. Next question. The business environment in China seems to be worsening due to COVID-19, political uncertainties, and so on. What is your outlook on China and the future plan for Chinese portfolio companies? Chinese companies, difficult.
The reason I said difficult is because it is for sure technology evolution is happening in China. Great AI technology there in China, one after another, and they are making a rapid growth. The government policy has been giving a large impact to the market. Chinese policy sometimes very much difficult to predict what kind of policy is gonna be announced. We always need to carefully listen to government's policy, and we don't want to stretch too much until we understand government's policy. We SoftBank Group assets hold are mainly Alibaba. That's the past, just about 18 months ago. That moment, about 65% of our assets were Alibaba. That was past. As of today, it's about 20% . It's not that when Alibaba falls, everybody falls.
That's about 18 months ago. Right now, our ownership, the ratio among our assets of Alibaba is 23% or so. Excuse me, 20% or so that we are not depending too much on China, and dependency has been decreasing. Also our Vision Fund portfolio or among Vision Fund portfolio, the Chinese companies are decreasing. So I believe that we have decreased our dependency on China or Chinese companies. For the future, we would like to carefully listen and watch the Chinese government's policy, and we would like to safely drive for the investment. We are not stopping, but we are very much careful, even more careful, and focused on the moves of the Chinese policies.
Next question. What is progress on Arm IPO? According to some newspaper, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson requested to list Arm on the London Stock Exchange. Will this affect IPO schedule?
Talking about Arm IPO, there were some hurdles to overcome. In fact, there was only one hurdle, which was Arm China. Arm China is a joint venture by Arm and Chinese investors, and the former head of Arm China was rebel. The board of directors, except himself, tried to relieve him, but he rejected. Because he kept the corporate seal, it was difficult to run the business, and it was difficult to get registered. That issue has been solved thanks to a new leader and thanks to the government support. Now the registration is done, and that means our audit can take place. Arm China hurdle was cleared. Arm's performance is pretty good. Arm used to be a listed company, so there's no reason why not Arm can list.
Only things we have to do is just to go through the processes. Of course, you have to look at the market environment to figure out the best timing. We are steadily working on preparation. Talking about location of the exchange, there are requests for us to get listed on London or New York, but we have not made a decision. It's just a matter of decision. It should not affect the schedule. Again, we are getting advice from experts before making a final decision. Once we decide location, all we need to do is just to go through the process, and things are going well.
Next question. I want you to invest in Japanese venture companies and guide them. How do you see the environment for Japanese venture companies?
From Vision Fund, especially from, more specifically from Vision Fund 2. From Vision Fund 1, there are no Japanese company invested, but from Vision Fund 2, four companies been invested from Vision Fund 2. Once we can find the good companies, we are planning to increase the investments. But the number of unicorns in AI area in Japan is too small compared to U.K., India, Indonesia. Japan is much smaller in terms of number of unicorns in AI. Considering the GDP of Japan, it should be more and more company, the venture companies. Matsuo, Dr. Matsuo, you should do the best. From The University of Tokyo, why don't we, if we can see the more and more companies, expertise, starting venture companies, that's gonna be great.
From the other university as well, hoping that we will be able to see more venture companies for AI. Youngsters in Japan, I hope they can use AI as a weapon so that they can increase or enhance the company. Once they become the certain size, I believe that we'll be able to see as a target for the investment of Vision Fund 2 as a later stage investment. I do have a good of expectation. Behind the schedule or the behind, compared to the other countries, I believe Japanese government, Japanese media, Japanese education, they should recognize we are behind. If we keep behind, I worried about 30 years later of Japan. Hopefully, with everyone's support and with everyone's wisdom, that we will be able to have a full support to the AI industry in Japan.
Once we start seeing the good companies, of course, Vision Fund will look for that and try to increase investment. Thank you.
Next question. You said you will slow down speed of investment. With extra time you have, will you be involved in Arm operations?
In the past, Mr. Yanai of Uniqlo and Mr. Nagamori of Nidec Corporation said they don't like Masayoshi Son as an investor. I want you to show them what you can do.
Well, Yanai-san, Nagamori-san gave me hard time sometimes, but not like show them what I can do. Arm's future potential and Arm's role, I fully believe from bottom of my heart. After deal with NVIDIA was not anymore. Arm's business plan, Arm's operation, almost every day I have been thinking about Arm, and I have been video calling with Arm's new management team. Talking with them, communicating with them almost every day. As a business model, I am involved in Arm's operations, so I am fully committed. CEO, of course, is Rene Haas. He is the new CEO of Arm. In fact, he exceeds my expectation. He used to be number two of Arm, but now he's number one, and he is working on more aggressive business plan together with myself. We are totally aligned in strategy and vision.
Again, count on us, we'll do it.
Next question. Dividend has remained unchanged for some time. Do you expect any increase in the future?
Well, is it better to increase the dividend or should we use those for buyback of shares? I think either way as a return to shareholders, increasing dividend or buyback. Which is better? I wonder that. Increasing dividend only available for the shareholders at the time. If you decide not to be a shareholder anymore after you receive dividends, next day, still the dividend. If you become the shareholder right before the registered time, you can just sell your share. Of course you may want to have a good dividend, even you are the long holder. When it comes to buyback of shares, that gives you increase in the asset value per share. For you, with the longer shareholders, buyback may be more better.
At the same time, we want to be steady in terms of dividend. Once we increase the dividend, that may be difficult to decrease afterwards. That I will not be able to live up to your expectations. I don't want to change dividend up and down. Rather, I would like to be stable dividend distribution. Buyback, we can decide based on the share price at that moment, and also our financial position at that moment and decide. Or we can decide whether the there is any good opportunities out there for the investment or not. For this year, maybe we wanna do more buyback. This year, we may not. We want to do more buyback. Based on the situation, along with the circumstance, we can flexibly decide the buyback.
Which should be prioritized and which is priority, return to shareholders. I rather think buyback is better. At the same time, I wanna do the steady increase in dividend. Once we increase, we don't want to decrease as much as possible in terms of dividend payments. That's how I feel.
Next question. Executive compensation is too expensive, too high while you are losing money.
Is it too high? Well, yes. This year we lose money, but one year ago we made a profit around JPY 6 trillion. My compensation from SoftBank Group and SoftBank KK, JPY 100 million. My compensation is effectively zero because total amount is donated. Maybe Goto-san's compensation is too much. Maybe it's criticized to you. You have-
Seeing decrease of compensation by 50%. Yes. Yes. When we made a profit, like JPY 6 trillion last year, compared to European or Western executives, not so high, but we are a global company. We wanna make sure are paying compensation to Western executives, to respect their performance. External directors, yes, they are contributing to us. As an executive officer, for their compensation compared to Western companies, I don't think our compensation level is too high, especially or at least myself. Again, I donate, and Goto-san's compensation was cut by half. Again, it. I don't think it's too much or too expensive. Next question. In addition to the current buyback program, are you planning to do more buyback? We will, in one word. We have been doing several times.
I won't say we do every year or how much or anything like that. That's not something that I should be saying. At the time when appropriate, we would like to make a judgment and re-announce. I don't know when, and I shouldn't be saying when, and I shouldn't be how much. Me, myself, I have looking at many companies to invest. Actually, the SoftBank share is most cheapest because we have more than JPY 20 trillion of assets and a few trillion JPY debt. Calculating those, around JPY 20 trillion level of the value or the net asset value and market cap 8 point some trillion JPY, more than 50% discount. Because we think this is cheap, that's why we have announced buyback program, and we execute those.
Buyback, we will do, but I don't say we're gonna do every year or we wanna do when and how much. Whenever we decide, we will immediately announce, and we will exercise immediately. That's how we do. Next question. You are reviewing business plan as long as 15 years. I wonder if you want to disclose it at least partially. Concerning investment environment, like, impacted by Ukraine and China, are you seeing any changes in terms of investment opportunity, investment environment? Yes, we did yesterday reviewing our 15-year business plan. I did this morning because I am fully motivated and committed. 15-year business plan, I don't think many listed companies have business plan as long as 15 years, because not so many CEOs who think they stay in their position for 15 years.
I think most CEOs would say that you never know what would happen in 15 years. We have 15-year business plan, and I am serious about that. Yeah, a lot of companies, yes, for sure, make five-year business plan, 10-year business plan. Most cases, they rarely change. Are you sure? I would say. Because things change. New technology emerge, new competitor emerges, and you have your own performance. Once you make five-year plan, do you review it only every three year or maybe five year? I would say you are not serious about business. It's not that easy, I would say. Once you decide business plan, are you sure that plan should stay for that term? I don't think you are confident. I think you don't think. My vision stays the same, and strategy rarely changes.
When it comes to execution, plan for execution, you need to review because things change. That's why I review our business plan every year, like COVID-19, Chinese market, Ukraine. Every news, every situation, at least once a week. I review business plan. Of course, we need to look at NAV, we need to look at LTV. LTV changes every day because equity value of holdings changes every day. Debt doesn't change every day, but equity value of holdings change every day. That's why LTV changes every day, NAV changes every day. At least once a week, we have to review to figure out how much more we should invest, how much more we should not invest, how much we should exit, where we should go, where we should allocate more or less, which sectors, which themes, fintech or where.
In 10 years ahead, in five years ahead, how much NAV should we expect or should we project? Every week we review. Do you want to see? We can't show because our secret. If you see it, you'll be surprised, that's for sure. If you would see it, you would like to buy our shares. Well, seriously, we have full of dreams and we have full of confidence. Even though we can't share our business plan with you, but trust us, we have full of dreams in our business plan. But, we make sure we take cautious approach.
Next question, please. SoftBank Corp has been showing the good performance and good dividend. However, of your subsidiary, sub-sub-subsidiary, SoftBank Corp, share price is not doing well. Is it any risk of the SoftBank Group Corp? So as a management or parent of the SoftBank Corp, how do you see? Why do you think that the share price is not increasing in SoftBank Corp, although the business performance is good and dividend is good?
Okay, Miyauchi. Oh, that's a good question. Why don't you make a remark? Always Miyauchi-san tell me that. Why don't you take off your mask and want you to say whatever you want to say.
Yes. Share price of SoftBank Corp., once it increased, JPY 1,500, exceed and decrease and, achieve and decrease. Yesterday that we have AGM, and we have increased it JPY 1,500. Always shareholders asking me, "When can we see the share price of JPY 1,600, 1,700 or so?" We have Kawabe-san next to me, our team not. It was originally only telecom business, but we are also covering Yahoo, Line, Zozo, PayPay. New business has been added one after another. From that sense, we have about 27,000 employees, of which those are all mainly focused on the telecom business.
However, in the past six years or so, SoftBank is focusing on telecom and others are actually focusing on other area. I haven't mentioned this too much, but actually, non-telecom business, we call it Beyond Carrier, is making a progress, and I am so confident we're gonna make a good success. As Masa said earlier, five to 10 years, if you look at the long term, then and also, Junichi Miyakawa, my successor as CEO, is having setting high vision and also always building a 10-year plan. Mr. Kawabe here, as indeed, for Z Holdings, try to grow its business. I believe that we're gonna do a better performance.
For the current question, I believe I doubt that the question is that the SoftBank Group Corp may sell and offer SoftBank Corp share.
I'm very happy to hear that question. Every time I meet Miyauchi-san, she said, "Son-san, don't sell our shares in SoftBank Corp. You have to say you don't sell." That's something that he always keep telling me and reminds me, I don't sell, we don't sell. We try it, we try to manage so that we don't have to sell. SoftBank Corp share price is about JPY 1,500 now, and I believe it's gonna go up to JPY 2,000 and so. That's not my responsibility. That's your guys' responsibility to make sure that you have a good improvement. I believe they're gonna make a good development.
In the SoftBank Corp leading or the growing company is Z Holdings, which has Line and Yahoo. We have Mr. Kawabe. Why don't you say a few words?
Thank you. My name is Kawabe from Z Holdings. Starting from last year, I also serving as a director of SoftBank Group Corp. I've been thinking, hearing Masa's presentation, AI evolution is going to grow even further. The best use of AI and increasing the convenience of users, I believe Line, Yahoo, PayPay, Zozo, those are the company that are gonna take advantage of AI revolution. I believe we will be the core or center of AI revolution so that we will be able to provide a good and comfortable service for you, and also increase our share price as well.
A number of AI unicorns is very small, I mentioned earlier. The biggest user of AI in Japan is probably Yahoo, or Z Holdings, Zozo or Alipay. That's exactly what Mr. Kawabe said. Hopefully, as an AI company leader at Z Holdings and also its parent company, SoftBank Corp, is doing to better develop the business. We, SoftBank Group Corp, keep SoftBank Corp as a core of the business and origin of our business, and we try not to sell the share of SoftBank Corp as much as possible. That's probably I can remind you once again with this opportunity.
Next question. Mr. David Chao to be elected as a board director, and looking at the skill map, it seems he has a good technical expertise. Maybe I should ask David Chao to make a—well, we have an opportunity to hear from him later, so I'll would rather ask him to talk about himself. He's been in Silicon Valley for 25 years as a venture capitalist. One of the top venture capitalists. He has been watching and investing in advanced technologies and his performance, he has a great performance, and he has a great track record. He has to be expert in technology. It's different from building by himself, but you need to have a strong insight and expertise because of he has to work or talk or discuss with technical expertise in the field.
Continuous communication with technical experts is one of the keys they or he has in succeeding as a venture capitalist.
Next question. Arm, do you think that they can compete against RISC-V? Knowing that there is gonna be a threat for RISC-V, you have confidence in Arm, so that you invest in Arm back in 2016. Yes, that's the answer for you. I have confidence in them.
Next question. Dividend has been very low, and you wanted to return to shareholders by raising share price, but share price have not been very high. As a group company, I wonder if you can reach payout ratio as much as 3%.
Like I explained before, stable dividend, it's hard for us to raise or decrease dividend. In exchange for that, we do share buyback sometimes. Size of share buyback, I think we are the biggest share buyback doer in terms of size and timing. Dividend and share buyback are two major tools to return to shareholders. For long-term shareholder, I think share buyback is better. Because value per share increases, and you turn out to have more shares. SoftBank Group stock is not necessarily dividend stocks. Rather we want to focus on increasing our enterprise value. Again, our stock prices sometimes go down, go up, but in the long run, our share price trend-wise is on the rise. If you are not patient, well, better not to try to patient for your own wellbeing.
Next question. Mr. Kenneth A. Siegel is also the representative Morrison & Foerster, and also you have a business relationship between SoftBank Group and Morrison & Foerster.
For serving as a director, is there any conflict of interest?
Conflict of interest case is rare. At least if there is any transaction has a conflict of interest, he leave the room for the resolution when we discuss at the meeting or board of directors meeting. Our business context or the status, I believe that the person who knows about our business and insider should be involved for the decision-making of the company as in management, and I believe that is better way. He is a great contributor, and almost every day we've been having a discussion because we do have a lot of legal lawsuit or the discussion or negotiation around the world. He's been also participate in strategy discussions.
Also there are IPO discussion for some companies too. He's a great contributor to the company. If there is any conflict of interest for such agenda, we are asking him to leave the room. Our legal team always checking which law firm that we use depending on the project, and we decide. We believe that we have a full management on that.
Next question. Again, dividend is too low. 44. It's not auspicious, should be 77. If NAV goes up, why don't you pay dividend more?
Well, spare me. I can't get committed to do that. Again, for dividend, like I said, yes, that's our view on dividend.
Next question. From external director's point of view, what is the risk for SoftBank Group?
Mr. Iijima, can you in order one word please?
My name is Iijima. Thank you for your question. I'm originally from Mitsui & Co . There are various types of risks. For example, pandemic is a risk. Ukraine, Russia is a risk. US and China, a geopolitical risk. Also, Masa, you mentioned NAV, LTV, those financial risk, interest rate, foreign exchange, supply chain risk. There are so much risks around the world. This is so-called enterprise cost risk or the comprehensive risk. This is always discussed in the meeting of board of directors. For those risks, I believe we are well-managed and good control over the risk by the company. From the shareholders' point of view, I understand what is we aiming for SoftBank Group Corp.
Successor for Masayoshi Son, I believe that the shareholders are concerned about, and I believe for SoftBank Group Corp is a kind of a never-ending risk or the never-ending concern for the successor of Masayoshi Son. For me, SoftBank Group Corp risk is the changing or the evolutions that it's making every time. Everything every time it's new, and that's the kind of a risk related. That's also inevitable. Before I joined the SoftBank Group as a director, actually that I concerned more. Once I start serving as a director, actually well-managed and greatly addressed a variety types of the risk and also very quickly addressing any changes to mitigate the risk.
I know better now as a director. Ms. Erikawa, how do you think? You can take off your mask.
Yes. Thank you for your question. When you manage the business, run the business, risk always comes along. How can you quickly look at that and review that and make a decision on that is important. Masa is actually very rare and very quickly address the risk and make a decision. Also, team members who support Masa is also greatly addressing as a global point of view. I do have a lot of investments globally, but I believe that I am confident that this company can be a global number one.
Japanese.
I'll speak in English. I would say that SoftBank has truly become an international organization. It's everywhere. It has investment teams in the United States, in China, in Europe, in the U.K. It needs to be extremely nimble in identifying international risks, global risks, financial risks that come out of that. I've been personally just incredibly impressed by the capabilities of the global financial management team and investment management team in identifying crystallizing those risks and allowing them to be fully analyzed for us on a regular basis, so we can identify them and react very quickly to them in this challenging times that we have. It's a constant challenge, but it is ancillary to being a global organization.
It's comforting to have a strong management team that is extremely focused on working and identifying and quantifying the risks for us to address. Thank you.
Those were the comments from our external directors. Next question.
Last time, you mentioned to decrease investment in China and S&P 500, NASDAQ index have dropped recently, and you may be concerned about U.S. market now. What's your view of going forward in terms of where to invest? Like I keep saying, there was a net bubble burst and financial crisis and COVID-19, Ukraine, China. Those are three big challenge took place at the almost same time, which have an impact on stock price. How long they keep decreasing?
Well, it's not gonna be forever. They should be return. When they bounce back, which sector will bounce back faster than others? The most advanced companies should bounce back bigger than others. We are decreasing percentage of investment in China.
That policy should stay the same for the foreseeable future. Other major markets like U.S., AI revolution, AI evolution keeps going. At the time of rebound, we want to again invest more. At the moment, we keep focusing on LTV to drive safely, but probably right before bouncing back, we should be able to start thinking about more investment.
In the interest of time, and I speak too much, we will take last two questions in the Q&A session. This is the next question. How do you think about monetization of Alibaba share to see the stabilization of financials and hope that you'll be able to achieve the net debt zero? Is it good to have a zero interest-bearing debt? You do see that this is the growing industry. I think that we can take to a certain extent of the leverage, but we don't stretch. 25% is the threshold we don't exceed, and 35% we definitely not exceed for loan to value. Under such uneasy, unstable circumstance, we would like to even more careful about safety driving and be defensive. That's something that we have announced.
In the meantime, until we see some settle of the market or become more comfortable market, we would like to keep the safety driving and.
Decrease our interest-bearing debt, keeping the good cash position enhanced. That's as we announced. It's not that zero for interest-bearing debt. That may be too much. That's may lose the opportunity for investment. Still, again, keeping the safe drive. That this will be the last question.
Last question. Do you have a plan to invest solely on companies like GAFA? Fund 2 seems too small considering how big you are. What's your strategy to turn around the Vision Fund?
Vision Fund 1, the size was big, and they focused on what we call decacorn, like over JPY 100 billion. That's our ticket size. When it comes to SoftBank Vision Fund 2, ticket size is smaller, maybe JPY 10 billion, JPY 20 billion, and more diversified in terms of where to invest. Somewhere between mid and late stage is the stage that we are looking at when it comes to SoftBank Vision Fund 2 investees. I think the approach is better just to be sure to deliver better performance. I think that's better approach or safer approach. Currently, market is tanked, and venture capitalists or venture capital have seen a decrease in value in holdings. We have expertise, we have talents, and we have processes in place in SoftBank Vision Fund. I feel pretty good.
When it comes to valuation of holdings impacted by the global market, yes, they have seen decrease, but focus on companies like GAFA in safe markets. In that sense, Arm is like future GAFA. When it comes to focused investment to hit big, I would say Arm. Yeah, they don't have extra investment because they make profit. They don't need capital investment, and they deliver cash flow, so they no longer need additional investment. SoftBank has 75%, Vision Fund has 25% of Arm. We already have Arm, and there should no need of extra or additional investment. That's how Arm can be run. Again, stay tuned. I am confident about future Arm.
Now, thank you for sharing your time with us, and I would like to close the Q&A session and move on to taking votes on matters for approval. For online shareholders to exercise your vote, please select Approve, Disapprove for all of the proposals on the website and click Exercise. Please note that all submissions will be made in a single transmission. While we confirm the result of the online shareholders, I would like to take a vote from visiting shareholders. We have calculations going on back behind this podium, but here, I will also like to take a vote at the venue as well. Now I will take a vote on proposal 1, appropriation of surplus or dividend payment. All those visiting in favor of the proposal, please clap your hands. Thank you very much.
Now I will take a vote on proposal two, partial amendment to the articles of incorporation. All those voting in favor of the proposal, please clap your hands. For right now, those online shareholders, please exercise your vote in the meantime. Lastly, I will take a vote on proposal three, election of nine board directors. All those voting in favor of the proposal, please clap your hands. Thank you. Please wait for a moment. We are confirming the result. Yes, thank you for your patience. I will report the confirmed result. Proposal two has received two-thirds of affirmative votes, and both proposal one and three have received a majority of affirmative votes. Now all the proposals have been approved as proposed. This concludes today's agenda, and I hereby declare the forty-second annual general meeting of shareholders of SoftBank Group Corp. closed.
Last but not least, Mr. Lip-Bu Tan, who is stepping down as Board Director at the conclusion of this meeting, would like to say a few words.
First of all, thank you so much, Masa, for the opportunity to serve on the SoftBank board for the last two years. During this period, I strongly believe that our corporate governance have been improved, as Masa always try to look out for the shareholders. We are gonna go through a very challenging period for the next two, three years, and I believe the strategy of Masa and SoftBank, and wish SoftBank a great success going forward. I will continue to be supporter of Masa and SoftBank, and I'm also very, very delighted to see my good friend, David Chao, to replace me on the SoftBank board. I really enjoy working with the fellow support member to support Masa and the capable SoftBank management team. Thank you so much for this opportunity.
Thank you, Lip-Bu. Thank you. Mr. Lip-Bu Tan has been working as a venture capitalist for more than achieving a great success in making a good result. Also, he is the chairman of Cadence, which is the number one design tool for the semiconductor. This company also creates a great growth of the enterprise value. Majority of the clients of Arm actually also using the tool of Lip-Bu's company in designing the semiconductor. He's the chairman of that company, therefore, he also has a great knowledge and insight about Arm, and for quite a long time he's been having a great relationship with Arm.
They serve the same clients and also have a great knowledge about Arm as well. He has been making a great contribution to our management and the board. Thank you very much once again. David Chao, our new board director elected at this meeting, would like to say a few words.
David.
I am a new board director. My name is David Chao. Mr. Son keeps beating me about golf distance or hitting distance. To somebody's question before, I was born in Japan, and I grew up in China, Japan, but I have been working in Silicon Valley for a long time. I learned sales in Recruit, and I did product marketing in Apple Computers, and then I moved to McKinsey as a business consultant. Especially in area of technology practice, I've been providing consulting to Silicon Valley companies. One of them was NeXT Computer, and Steve Jobs was one of my clients. He was a difficult client, but he was a genius. Then 25 years ago, DCM Ventures, which is in the U.S. That invest in U.S. and China and Japan.
That was a venture fund, again, invest in U.S., China and Japan at an early stage. I was a co-founder, and I am co-founder. Assets under management is JPY 500 billion, and I am a general partner investing globally. In 2006, Forbes, American media company, announced a venture capitalist, and I was among the top 10 as the first Japanese investor. I was enrolled in the Hall of Fame. I have been serving executives of a lot of distinct companies, technology companies. One of them was one in China. I have those experiences, and with those experiences, I'd like to help adding value to you shareholders. It's very nice to meet you, and appreciate your continued support.
Great. He speaks Chinese, Japanese, English. I don't know which one is his mother tongue. In Silicon Valley for 25 years, he's been working as venture capitalist and also joined the Hall of Fame too. He has achieved great results. I hope as a new director and he can be making a great contribution to the future success of SoftBank Group Corp. I expect on him very much. Thank you. All the agenda finished. Under such an uncertain market or equity market or such world, and the people is also uncertain. Under such a circumstance, I believe we should be watching my favorite video.
This was created quite a long ago, and I want you to see that, and so that we'll be able to end this meeting. Please, video start.
Sorrow is inherent to the human condition. Since the beginning of time, humans have sought to overcome sorrow. Some have turned to religion. Others have sought solace in philosophy or art. Now, we see a different solution, a new means to relieve sorrow, to multiply joy, a solution unique to our time, to our era. We call it the information revolution. A revolution that allows the thoughts of one to be shared by many, and the thoughts of many to be available to all. Connecting people, thoughts, visions, and dreams, one to another, no matter how far apart they may be. When you're all alone in the dark of night, someone, somewhere on the other side of the planet can shed a ray of morning light. A technology developed in one country can solve a problem in another.
A brilliant idea on one side of the globe can turn despair to hope on the other. Information technology generates an attractive force between people, ideas, and thoughts. A force that drives our destiny and that tells us we are not alone. A force that brings people together and sets us free. Overcoming barriers of nationality, age, race, language, time, and space will help us cure disease, fill education with excitement, eliminate war, and live in peace. Ever-evolving technology and never-changing value of human love. Together, we'll open the doors to a new century of happiness and joy.
Hopefully, there will be a peace come back to Ukraine. I sincerely hope so. Thank you very much.