Thank you very much for waiting, everyone. Now, we would like to start the SoftBank Group Corp. earnings results announcement for the six-month period ended September 30, 2021. First of all, I would like to introduce today's participants. From left, we have Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO. Yoshimitsu Goto, Board of Director and CFO. Kazuko Kimiwada, Senior Vice President and Head of Accounting Unit. Today's announcement is live broadcast over internet. Now, I would like to invite Mr. Son, Chairman and CEO, to present you the earnings results and business overview. Mr. Son, please.
My name is Son. Thank you very much for today. Well, life is so interesting. There are so many dramatic event. Just about six months ago, back in March this year, we had the announcement for the year-end in May, and we have spent six months since then. Back then, I said SoftBank born at Zasshonokuma about 40 years ago, started by myself and two other part-timers. I looked back and talked about that. I said that there is a dream over the road, and we have grown so much since then. That was my talk, and today is the next chapter from there. Let me start my presentation. Next chapter, what happened to us? Blizzard. We are in the middle of blizzard. I said that there is a rainbow over the road, and we have grown so much. That's what I said.
In Japanese economy, we reached JPY 5 trillion of net income, and I was so proud to present our result and also looked back that 40 years ago. Six months later, what happened to us? We are in a snowstorm again. It's a blizzard. We are in the winter storm. Here, last year first half, it was JPY 1.8 trillion net income. This time it's a big reduction, JPY 360 billion. It's not a loss, so maybe it's better, but actually, effectively it's a big loss. How bad or how loss? I would say effectively JPY 6 trillion loss. JPY 6 trillion loss means I have several times mentioned, I most importantly focus about the net asset value, NAV, compared to accounting net income.
For me, for SoftBank Group, more important key performance indicator is net asset value, NAV. SoftBank, as an investor, this is the most important indicator for us, and we have reduced JPY 6 trillion in just three months. This is a big event. Effectively, JPY 6 trillion loss. We are in a big winter storm, entering into the big blizzard. For shareholders of SoftBank Group, I believe this is one big event. It is one big event, but at the same time, for me, I am not that pessimistic. Actually, it's not always the bad stories. That's something that I would like to speak about in the following pages. In summary, no excuse, our net asset value has decreased by JPY 6 trillion.
That's the fact I wanted to share in the first pages of my presentation. Let me also show you the breakdown. In one word, Alibaba. Among our net asset value, the largest portion has been Alibaba, and this Alibaba has reduced its value quite largely. Alibaba is a listed company, public company, so share price of Alibaba is disclosed and also it is shared by everyone. I believe that many people always expected to some extent that Alibaba share price has been impacted our net asset value, and this is how we describe in the graph. The orange bar, it has occupied about 60%. Among the NAV right now reduced down to 28%.
On the other hand, it's not always decreasing. Actually, our main course, our core business, which is Vision Fund, which I've been explaining several times. This Vision Fund actually taking or accounted for about 44% among total net asset value. You can see this blue portion or the blue bar is increasing steadily. Last year, just about a year ago, the same time last year, first half ended as of today, if you compare with those two, net asset value of JPY 27 trillion. Alibaba was accounted for about 60%. Now that's reduced to JPY 20 trillion. 59% of Alibaba share has decreased to 28%. The 16%, which is relatively small portion of Vision Fund, has grown to 44% just in a year.
This is the now biggest part for net asset value of SoftBank Group. If you take a look at our net asset value by countries, United States actually making a steady growth, blue bar. China is a red bar. Majority of the China's portion is Alibaba share. Due to the decrease of Alibaba share, and also there are some Chinese portfolio by Vision Fund, such as DiDi, which went public successfully. However, those high-tech shares in China is having some difficulties. Those high-tech stocks in China has been seeing a decrease in share, its share price. The same as Alibaba and DiDi, and also other portfolios in China has been reducing its value in the past three months.
When you take a look at the blue bars and the green bars, with those two are actually making good growth steadily. Which means, United States and others are making good growth. Net asset value is the most important indicator for SoftBank Group. There is another thing. I would say two things, two indicator that we very much see the importance. One is net asset value, and the other is loan to value. With those two, SoftBank Group managements are managing our business. Loan to value, this is our holding assets divided by net debt. Because many people will say that the SoftBank Group is the king of debt or something, but that's actually a very much misunderstanding. That's the old SoftBank. That's the
Actually, there are some times that we have experienced about 65% of loan to value. Back then, of course, I would say, Sprint transaction or Vodafone's transaction, right, immediately after such transaction, I do recall that we have reached somewhere 65% of loan to value. Back then I believe that we are a very much high debt company, and that was very risky. At this moment, net debt over equity value of holding right now, loan to value is 19%, which is very safe level for me. In the last three, four years, how has LTV been moving? On the left-hand side, it was like three years ago when SoftBank Mobile was 100% subsidiary of SoftBank Group. Then SoftBank went public. Since then, LTV has been always under 20%.
We are running the business safely, if you will, looking at LTV. In our internal rule, 25%, around 25% is the level that we should keep in terms of LTV. In the worst case scenario, still, we want to make sure that it won't exceed 35%. That's our financial discipline.
That's the indicator. Either 25% or 35%, we don't want to exceed those levels. That's the strict discipline that we set for us. Even though equity value of holding went down by 50%, we should be okay. That's how we see LTV. Now talking about the Vision Fund. In the last three months, even Vision Fund lost about JPY 1 trillion. We are not proud of that either. In the last three months, I said NAV lost JPY 6 trillion, and most of that was due to Alibaba share drop. Also, SoftBank Vision Fund performance is not something that I'm proud of either. Vision Fund lost JPY 1 trillion in the last three months. However, looking at the cumulative number, we see JPY 6 trillion of gain since the inception of SoftBank Vision Fund.
Vision Fund itself is successful, but looking at the last three months. For example, DiDi, like I mentioned earlier, DiDi went public successfully in China. However, after they went public, they are facing a tough challenge in terms of Chinese regulations. Other Chinese companies that we own, most of them have lost their values recently. Late last year, Coupang in South Korea also went public successfully and no rebound we see from that successful IPO of Coupang, so they lost value as well. SoftBank Vision Fund lost gain from JPY 7 trillion to JPY 6 trillion cumulatively. If you look deeper, Vision Fund One accounts for most of the gain. Fund Two and Latam Fund is indicated in the light blue in the bar chart, so they just started. Vision Fund One has longer history and performance of Vision Fund.
Usually, when it comes to fund, it takes 3-4 years to see gains. Vision Fund was earlier than Fund Two and Latam Fund. Of course, we saw a lot of events like WeWork shock, if you will, and Uber's failure in terms of IPO, and also COVID-19 pandemic. We have gone through tough period. Over that, Vision Fund One, after COVID-19, they started building again the value. Vision Fund Two and Latam Fund, we just started, so in the next 3-4 years, we believe that they're gonna see more values coming in. By the country or regions, the U.S. indicates blue. In terms of NAV, U.S. is growing steadily, and Vision Fund, despite COVID-19 and WeWork issue. In fact, WeWork went public recently. It's been recovering steadily.
DoorDash in the U.S., again, successful IPO. U.S. has been doing well. Green is Asia, Europe and South Africa, excuse me, South America. Coupang, for example, in South Korea was successful, so green has been doing well. China is the only one which is in red, has lost in the last three months. The gain they accumulated had gone in the last three months. Alibaba's share price drop and the Vision Fund portfolio company's drop in terms of share price were key drivers of Vision Fund loss. Cumulatively, how much they invested in what country? U.S., China, two major markets in terms of Vision Fund investment. Also Asia, Europe and Latin America. Put them together, it looks green is a big pie. Talking about individual country, U.S. is the majority.
Green part in the pie chart, we want to build more value here. It's slightly different from venture capital in Silicon Valley. Of course, we are successful in the U.S., but also we are successful in other regions as well by sectors.
Consumer services, logistics, mobility. Well, in consumer services, there is Coupang and DoorDash is in logistics. Mobility includes Uber and others. Fintech is interesting. Its presence is growing. Vision Fund, I'm confident with Vision Fund. Some people may say that even though I mentioned that SoftBank Vision Fund plays a key role in SoftBank Group, Masa makes all decisions when it comes to SoftBank Vision Fund, which is not true. There are about 3,000 companies in the pipeline, and we are looking at them regularly. Our investment team has offices across the globe, and they conduct preliminary screening and underwriting. They do due diligence, and they go through investment committee, which includes myself as a member. We are going through this rigorous process.
There are about 100 people looking at our pipeline by regions, by sectors, et cetera. Difference between Fund 1 and Fund 2 is as follows. Fund 1. Well, investment per deal, investment amount per deal was bigger in Vision Fund 1 compared to Vision Fund 2. For example, investment per deal by Vision Fund 1 was about JPY 100 billion. So ticket size per deal is one-fifth of Vision Fund 1 in case of Vision Fund 2. So Vision Fund 2 want to make a hit more than Vision Fund 1. So, we would like to make a cumulative gain. So per investment, rather than making a big swing, rather we would like to make sure to robust and also allocate in diverse way. Another highlight is the our ownership per case.
Vision Fund 1 case, we put about 20% or so, but in Vision Fund 2, we make it about teens. Our ownership stake per company has been smaller in detail, but at the same time, number of deals has increased compared to Vision Fund 1. We have reduced the size per ticket, but the number of deals has increased. In total, the amount of the investment is about same or even bigger compared to Vision Fund 1. From our understanding, try to take ownership stake for 20% or 30%, that will make us more expensive. Also, a counterpart shareholder do not want to see too much dilution. If we want 20%, 30%, then that will be more expensive.
That was a kind of a negotiation case, but rather making smaller ticket and also a little bit earlier to enter so that we can reduce this ticket size and also not taking a large ownership stake so that we'll be able to make it in detail. In case of Vision Fund 2, as an shareholder, as an investor, this Vision Fund 2 is owned by SBG, SoftBank Group 100%, so there is no outside investor because Vision Fund 1 has an external share investors for 50%, so that our ownership was effectively 11%. Our ownership-wise, it was 11% to 15% when it comes to ownership stake per company or per case. That makes us easy to enter and also easy to exit at the same time.
That will make us able to manage in details. What are we doing? Many people still wonders what SoftBank Group does. In principle, we are investor, and we invest in companies. We focus on private unicorn companies, and we would like to create the group of AI unicorns. Once they go public, because after they grow and matured and go public, then we exit or we divest. Once we monetize or exit those companies, then that will be recycled too as an capital for the investment into new private unicorns. I said that we would like to manage our loan-to-value less than 25%, and where the money come from is that three point two trillion yen for first half that we have invested so far.
Where that money comes from? About 90%, about JPY 3 trillion came from those shares that went public, or we utilize or monetize those shares. We utilize for asset financing. It's not the new money like issuing bond or loan, making a more loan or anything, but rather we would like to do within our assets so that we can monetize. Also we can now making recycling ecosystems. As I mentioned in the beginning of my presentation, compared to six months ago, I was very proud to announce the result with 40 years ago's memory in creating the big gain.
Six months later, we are in the middle of blizzard, and just in three months especially, mainly from Chinese portfolio, we have seen the reduction of the net asset value. But still, for me, I can see something here. You can see a little bit of sprout there. In the middle, you can see the new green sprout is coming out. That's something I see in the blizzard. We are seeing such a new sprout in the snow storm, and we would like to raise this sprout with well-managed way. About a year or two years ago, SoftBank Group, I said SoftBank Group is the goose lays golden eggs. I talked about the golden eggs coming out from those goose, and that's something that I used as slide for presentation.
Those golden eggs, number of golden eggs, it would be increasing. That's what I said back then. You see this, the dotted line, starting from there that we launched our Vision Fund. In the past 20 years, it's about one or two companies that we have seen the monetization by going public or exit. Since the launch of Vision Fund, two companies, four companies, six companies, you're seeing the doubling numbers. For this year, only in six months, we have already seen 18 companies. If we add the second half, I am so sure that we'll be able to see more numbers. Actually, those eight companies are already applied for IPO, and also, there is five companies which has already announced its merger with SPAC. We already seeing about 31.
This number, they are already in process of going public. Therefore, we are making very steady steps to lay about double the numbers of golden eggs compared to last year. We are looking at around 30 golden eggs. Inside of these golden eggs, sometimes this golden egg does not come out as a good goose, but sometimes we can see the shining golden eggs which becomes shining goose, so like a DoorDash. Those are actually inside of this eggs, so that ratio is also going to increase. Vision Fund, it's not that we only investing in 20 companies or 30 companies. We are actually investing in 368 companies.
I mentioned earlier, cumulative gains of Vision Fund, about 90% are coming from Vision Fund 1. Actually, Vision Fund 1 had to spend about three or four years to start seeing such a gain. With the Vision Fund 2 and Latam Fund, although the ticket size becomes smaller, but already the number of companies we invested has grown to about 3x , or more than 3x , I would say. Or even 4x . About 4x . Per ticket size is even its ticket size is 1/5, but now the number of is about the same number of, or 3x as much as, 3x numbers of eggs are in the basket already compared to Vision Fund 1.
That's why I said that we are still in the blizzard. However, we start seeing the ecosystem working already with our assets, monetizing the assets or exiting those assets that can utilize that money to recycle the ecosystem. The new sprout is also coming out, which is Arm and PayPay. Arm, as you know, we bought at about JPY 3 trillion, and Arm was valued at JPY 4 trillion when we agreed with NVIDIA for merger.
One third cash, one third NVIDIA shares. Since then, for one year, NVIDIA share price doubled. If and when NVIDIA deal is closed, JPY 3 trillion should go to JPY 4 trillion. According to the current share price of NVIDIA, JPY 9 trillion. By that, what I mean is, deal should be considered as JPY 9 trillion deal, not JPY 4 trillion deal. JPY 5 trillion is of course not materialized, and also subject to the government approval. PayPay, I'm confident with PayPay. Talking about NAV, I keep talking about, and also I mentioned a new bird. Again, NAV. To remind you, about JPY 25 trillion, including Alibaba, Vision Fund and others. We have net debt of JPY 4.8 trillion. NAV should be JPY 20.9 trillion.
Looking at the market cap as of September end, JPY 11.1 trillion. Value of holding JPY 25 trillion, and market value JPY 11 trillion. Compared to NAV, we see about 50% discount. How NAV has been going for the last 20 years or so? As you can see, we have ups and downs. Since 2020, it's been steadily going up, as you can see. As of September end, I said JPY 20.9 trillion. Since then, about JPY 1 trillion rebounded, and I'm sure that it goes up even further. Still, our market cap went down since September end. Discount has widened to 51. Excuse me, 52%. Per share, JPY 12,914 is the NAV per share.
As of 3:00 today, 6,161 JPY per share, which means 52% discount. Again, NVIDIA about JPY 5 trillion of unrealized gain should be expected. The NAV should go up higher. Of course, we don't get approval, so we don't mention here about NAV's expected gain. Also on top of that, PayPay should grow further. Considering that, discount for me effectively is around 60%, taking into consideration of NVIDIA and PayPay. Again, even though we are in the middle of blizzard, we are seeing bird like this. Maybe not one, but three birds are over there in the snow storm. That's for me. Message to shareholders. I myself, as one of the shareholders of SoftBank Group, against the backdrop where there is 50%, 60% discount.
From a shareholder's perspective, how can we take advantage of that and turn it into something positive as opposed to negative? One way is repurchase. Again, I am a shareholder of SBG, and I keep saying blizzard and snowstorm, et cetera. But to be honest, I am excited because we are discounted against our true potential. If that's the case, now is the time, now is the chance to repurchase shares. We had a heated discussion at the board meeting, and we agreed that we will repurchase our shares for JPY 1 trillion. I am so excited because I am a shareholder, so I have been expecting this board approval. Share buyback of JPY 1 trillion. How much we can purchase for one year, that's level that we agreed and approved at the board of directors meeting.
In one year period, of course, we want to complete repurchase of our shares at JPY 1 trillion. NAV, this is important, and LTV needs to be taken into account. Also investment opportunities we don't want to lose. Finance policy, investment opportunities, and NAV discount, those are very important indicators for us we need to look at. Chances are we may not reach JPY 1 trillion in one year in terms of repurchase of our share. JPY 1 trillion of share buyback, we want to complete in one year. We may not reach JPY 1 trillion in one year.
If we don't reach JPY 1 trillion within one year, even though we may extend the period, of course, we have another discussion at board of directors meeting, but I hope to reach JPY 1 trillion even though it may take longer than one year. Anyway, the point here is JPY 1 trillion of share buyback. There are chances that the term may be longer than one year, just so you know. Usually in the earnings result announcement, I talk about some companies that we have invested in, but today we just wanted to focus on share buyback and importance of NAV. Again, thank you very much for your attendance and attention today. That's all for my presentation.
Now question and answer. We take questions from our people on the venue. For those who are on Zoom, access to Zoom webinar and press raise hand button and wait for your name to be called. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press lower hand button. We'd like to take up to two questions per person, so that we can take questions from as many people as possible. Now we'd like to take question from people on the floor. Well, one question per person, please.
Yes, the white shirt in the very front row, please.
My name is Nakajima from Kyodo News. The other day, it was reported that it is invested in Acroquest firm, a Japanese company. Son-san, you've been worried that there is not such Japanese portfolio companies. I believe this is the first step for you to start investing in Japan? What is your investment policy for a Japanese company?
Yes, of course, we would like to increase, or we'd like to see the increase of numbers we invest in, Japanese companies. About 3,000 companies are on our pipelines and we're seeing the deal flow. It's really regrettable to say that the number of Japanese companies are so small out of those pipelines. I've been thinking this is really unfortunate. The first investment has been made in Japan by Vision Fund. Hopefully, we'll be able to start seeing more and more AI unicorns in Japan, and hoping that we'll be able to increase the number of investments.
Next question.
Nakagawa from Toyok eizai. About SVF two, I think commitment amount is about JPY 444 billion. Looking at LTV in the future, how much are you going to build a commitment?
Well, thank you for your question. Of course, we are looking at LTV and other key performance indicator to make a decision. We are seeing a lot of listed companies in their portfolio, and exit and monetization. Constantly, capital should come from them. Every year, about JPY 100 million of investment we want to continue taking into account of LTV.
Going forward, JPY 100 million is the commitment that you are going to build every year?
Yes. Constantly and flexibly.
My name is Ichikawa from Yomiuri Shimbun. I have a question about Vision Fund II. I believe we've seen more and more early-stage company investment. The number of home runs are reducing, but at the same time, you can risk hedge those. Considering the Chinese market, any ideas, your policies on investments or capital policy may changes because of those change. What is your idea?
As you saw my presentation, ticket size per case, per project, is smaller. We are not making a big swing. I would say JPY 20 billion per investment is already large enough compared to traditional venture capitals. I believe this is about 10 times, 20 times compared to traditional tickets. At the time of Vision Fund 1, we learned lots of lessons. We studied and understand many things.
I believe this is a quite appropriate size ticket size now. At the same time, we would like to cover many sectors, including fintech, Medicares, and diversified our portfolio so that we can make a good balance in terms of region, in terms of sector. We would like to make in detail portfolio diversification so that not a big swing, not a big ticket size, not a big risk. Steadily, we would like to increase. I think we have a good system placed. The number of deals is increasing dramatically.
By increasing the cases, deal cases, and because we're seeing the increase of number of cases, even though that we have a smaller ticket size, we still believe that the results are good enough. Capital policy-wise, we are not marketing to the external investors. I don't think right now we don't need to ask for outside money. I think that we can do by our own. Rather, we would like to do our own share buyback, but still we can manage our balance sheet for such investments.
Next question, please, on the floor. Oda from Jiji Press.
In the presentation, you mentioned Arm selling to NVIDIA and European regulators are concerned in some press. Currently, what's your view on the prospect of regulatory approval? What kind of impact you expect from competition on your investment?
Of course, regulators want to review very carefully, and they have gone into second stage of examination. I still believe that review should be completed successfully. I can't promise, nobody can promise, but I myself believe that approval process should go successful. What about economic security challenge or issue? Even though Japanese SoftBank owns Arm or U.S. NVIDIA owns Arm, from economic security perspective, I think it won't make a big difference, at least in terms of Arm.
Next question, second from the top.
My name is Sanda from Nikkei Business. I would like to ask about the co-investment program for the fund, and I believe you have announced previously. Any other people are joining this co-investment program or in what kind of allocation?
Well, I myself have committed to that program. For the other members, at this moment, we are still adjusting. It was not shown on my presentation, but the investment in public securities, the company called SB Northstar, which I invest about 30% in this company as in co-investments. This is about to close or end. Investing in Amazon, Google, Facebook, such public securities, has been made by SB Northstar. As in SoftBank Group, it was about ±0. It was making quite a big loss before, but as of today, it's about ±0.
At the very beginning, when we start investing in Amazon or others, this SB Northstar, the organization itself has not been created. My investment was a little bit later. It was making a big gain in the beginning, but after I started joining this investment, it became a loss. I think it was about JPY 150 billion risk I took, and a JPY 150 billion loss personally. As a manager, myself, about 30%, SoftBank Group about 70%. This 70% SoftBank Group portion, actually it, the very beginning it was SoftBank Group 100% and making a good gain. After then, it made a loss. In total, or actually the plus minus zero. I came in later, so I was already in the negative bucket.
Here, I believe that this is something that showing the management taking a risk and join the investment. It goes well, then that we all make it happy. When it goes bad, then that we all lose money. For this Vision Fund too, I would like to once again make a risk, and I have a confidence that we will be able to make this happen. At the same time, for other management to join and take a risk, that's something very tough things to do. If you need to pay your own personal money, taking a risk for several tens of billions JPY, which is a very high-risk thing. We do need to do the coordinate well, and we need to be careful about that.
Me, as a captain of the boat, not the 30% this time, but I am taking some tens of percent for this co-investment program. Not taking any risk for the shareholders. There are some risk for this co-investment program. That is why it's taking a little bit of time to finish this.
Next question on the floor. Otani from NHK.
Talking about investment in startup in Japan, you made the first investment in Japan, and second and third. Is there a possibility to do that again? What kind of conditions should be met in Japan for you to make an investment in Japanese startups?
In fact, second deal is happening. We are talking with the company, negotiating on terms and conditions, so the second one should come sooner or later. There are other potentials in Japan, so I am sure that we're gonna have more and more companies that we invest in Japan.
Next question.
My name is Otsubo from Sankei Shimbun. I have a question about PayPay. I believe this can be a big spurt same as Arm. At the same time, I believe we expect that PayPay can be super app, but also you have LINE as well. There are many super apps among you. Do you have any strategy on this super app type of concept?
I am quite confident and convinced that PayPay is gonna be growing big. PayPay has created together with its SoftBank Group, SoftBank Corp., and Z Holdings. The number of downloads of apps among all the sectors, actually PayPay is number one these days.
Among all the sector or category, payment app is taking a number one position for, as for number of downloads, which is not the phenomenon that you can see in other countries, and actually it's even growing. Number of transaction amount is increasing as well, so I am so sure that this is growing. Right now, they are still making loss, so this loss needs to be, and I want to see as it's possible, to turning into profitable. I said making loss, but gross margin-wise, now that they are making money, so turning into profitable when it comes to gross margin. But still have enough such a cost, so not the net income yet, still they're in loss. But they are all in the same group.
I believe that it is going to make a good super app with the collaboration among those companies. Shareholder value or IPO, how about that? Some time when the time comes, I really am motivated, and I hope that we can see the company going public. The value or the timing, I believe it's too early to discuss at this moment. Three more people from the venue.
Suzuki from Nikkei Asia. Such companies to be listed, you mentioned in the presentation, and one of them should be Paytm in India, I believe. Valuation-wise, $20 billion or so? Maybe a little bit lower than your target level. That kind of market expectation. What's your view on that? Or what's your view on potential of Paytm in the future? Thank you.
Well, I believe Paytm should grow significantly. Valuation-wise, of course it depends on the market condition and investors' appetite. Either way, I believe that valuation should be bigger than the cost that we spent when we made an investment. For us, their IPO should be a great event, and I believe that they can grow their value going forward. Not only Paytm, but also there are other businesses that we have high expectation of. For the year-end and early next year, I'm looking forward to those potentials, possibilities. The number of IPOs has been growing, and some make a big hit.
Oh, thank you very much.
My name is Wada from Nikkei newspaper. Some media writes that there are some managements of Vision Fund is leaving the company. Is this true? What is your employment policies to maintain those talents?
Silicon Valley, there are some turnovers always happening in any companies. When you look at Apple, Google, Facebook, whatever the company is, we see the turnover. From Japanese culture's point of view, sometimes feels sad to see. But actually, that's the kind of culture of Silicon Valley. There are always the replacement or turnover of the people, and we have assumption that is happening anyway, so that it's not that asking for each individual capability. But we would like to see as a organization capability, organization structure. Strengths of such organization needs to be cared and also grow.
There are some people leaving us, but there are people coming in to us. That's happening all the time. There are some great track record member in the other competitor fund is actually interested in us, or the new manager level is actually taking an offer. Or because of our track record, our momentums, I believe that attracts new talent as well. They are knocking our doors too. In such situation, we hope that we'll be able to make the organization strong.
Thank you.
Last question from the floor, please. Fujikawa from Wall Street Journal. Question about technology companies in China. What kind of impact should we expect regulatory environment in China against especially technology companies? What kind of impact that would have for startups in the future?
Thank you for your question. I am a little bit concerned about what's happening in China, but also, AI-related companies are coming up, so we continue to invest in AI companies like we do every day. In fact, in the morning, over the Zoom, I had a call with a Chinese company that has been growing exponentially. AI revolution, AI technology-related companies are coming up, emerging in China. I hope that, and I believe that those companies will grow. In that sense, we will continue to invest in those, potential AI-related companies in China. I hope that they're gonna grow even further in China.
That's all from questions from the floor. Now take questions from Zoom participants. Now that we are taking questions from, Zoom participants, please refrain from connecting to other live stream to avoid any echoing.
Thank you very much for your understanding. First question is from Inagaki-san from Financial Times. Please unmute and start your question. Please make it one question per person. Please go ahead.
Yes, this is Ms. Inagaki from Financial Times. I would like to ask you about the buyback. You have mentioned about the possibility, but you would like to enhance the corporate enterprise value by increasing the value of Vision Fund. Of course that at this time big reduction in net asset value, but still, why you come to this announcement of buyback at this moment, at this timing?
Because of discount of net asset value increased. Therefore, for the current share price I believe is the timing for buy for shareholder. That's my belief. That's how I understand the current situation. That is why we came to this conclusion.
Of course, new investment opportunities, we don't want to miss those, so that we need enough capital, available for those new investment opportunities, and at the same time to make sure manage our loan to value less than 25%. We would like to make sure to keep this discipline, and also cash position always in cash that we would like to make sure to cover two-year equivalent of, redemptions for the bond. Keeping such financial discipline, and still we think that we are in the position that we can announce this JPY 1 trillion level of the buyback. That's why we come to this conclusion.
Next, Hyuga-san from Bloomberg.
Thank you for taking my question. My name is Hyuga from Bloomberg. My question is, are you talking about taking advantage of lower share price and turn it to something positive? When we talk to institutional investors of SoftBank Group, not because of share repurchase, but China risk is big reason why they were concerned about SBG. Like you mentioned, Chinese stocks account for about 20%, and you just mentioned that you continue to invest in Chinese companies. Don't you think that would be interpreted as a risk by investors?
Share buyback or monetization program of JPY 2.5 trillion, it was successful for the time being, but share price went down.
Thank you for your question. Like I mentioned earlier in the presentation, just one year ago, Chinese companies, especially Alibaba, or the Chinese companies accounted for 60% of NAV, and now just 20%. Percentage of China in NAV has gone down dramatically. If it is still 60%, maybe China risk is a huge cloud over us. Percentage is down to 20% in terms of NAV. Even though I mentioned that we continue investing China, in terms of companies invested by Vision Fund, only 20%. From that perspective, I don't think that China risk is so huge. I think it's a manageable level.
Again, ticket size is small, and we make sure that the company that we invest in is something very healthy and manageable.
Thank you. Next question is from Owada-san, Nikkei BP. Please unmute and start your question.
This is Owada speaking. I have a question about AI venture investment in Japan. About six months ago, you mentioned that you have ideas to grow the AI ventures in Japan, but it's still too early. Since six months has passed, can you share with us what is your new idea?
We are still working on. Through Vision Fund, we made the first investment in Japan. We found a first one, and we have a second one in pipelines. Now that we are working to discuss the terms. We believe that we can steadily increase. I don't believe there is any easy way to increase AI unicorns in Japan. That's, I believe, our current status. We would like to make it one step by another. Thank you.
Next question is from Saito-san from Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun.
Talking about Japanese startups, what's your view on market environment around Japanese startups? What do you think there were not so many opportunities in Japan that you wanted to invest in? In Japan, at the moment, there are not so many venture capitals, and what's your view on that reality?
Thank you for your question. Well, in the U.S., like I mentioned earlier, especially Silicon Valley, whether good or bad, there are a lot of companies or businesses spun out of a big, giant, successful company like Google. That kind of a rotation or spin out, that's very dynamic in the U.S. When a new green shoot comes up in terms of technology, then the talents of people will move accordingly. Even a new business or new startup, very talented young management are coming in and moving around. In Japan, well, traditionally, workers spend so many years in the same company, so it's, I think, hard for startup to grow in Japan. Talking about venture capital in Japan, they often say that they want to contribute to Japan indirectly, not directly.
They are not hungry for pure investment in Japan. Very competitive environment or entrepreneurs or investors are not so many in Japan. Also, AI technology has not been well-used or well-known in Japan. There are a lot of challenges in Japan. Having said that, I begin to see potentials. Once success story is there, I believe that more and more young people wants to follow suit. Thank you very much. That is the last question from the Zoom. Thank you very much. That's all for my presentations and answers for your questions. Once all the blizzard comes, that's also an opportunity. With no excuse, past three months, I will admit that the net asset value has declined.
We have ups and downs, but hopefully we would like to keep working hard, and I do have confidence that we can make it happen. That concludes our announcement for today. Thank you very much.
Thank you. This concludes the SoftBank Group Corp. earnings results announcement for six-month period ended September 30th, 2021. 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 six-month period ended September 30th, 2021.