Bloomberg reported on Friday (2nd), citing people familiar with the matter, that SoftBank plans to slash 20% of the manpower of its loss-making Vision Fund, which has about 500 people, so it will lay off 100 people this time, the fastest possible. announcement this month. SoftBank's tragic loss led Chief Executive Masayoshi Son to say he would consider all possible cost-cutting measures, including layoffs.

People familiar with the matter pointed out that the layoffs are mainly concentrated in the United Kingdom, the United States and China, which have the largest number of employees. However, another person familiar with the matter said that SoftBank executives are still discussing the scale of layoffs, and there are even rumors that some people have asked for layoffs as high as 50%.

In response, a SoftBank spokesperson responded in an email that, as founder Masayoshi Son said in his last financial report, the scale and structure are being assessed, and nothing has been finalized.

In addition to ordinary employees, SoftBank's internal management also faces huge challenges. The company's chief operating officer, Marcelo Claure, left earlier this year, while former chief strategy officer Katsunori Sago has resigned in 2021. SoftBank veteran Rajeev Misra, head of the Vision Fund, will also go solo to create his own investment fund, and Masayoshi Son will serve as the CEO of SoftBank Vision Fund Phase II.

Since the beginning of this year, SoftBank's stock price has fallen by 18%. If calculated from the highest point last year, SoftBank's stock price has fallen by 60%.

SoftBank’s financial report announced in August suffered a serious loss. In the second quarter, it lost 3.16 trillion yen, breaking a record of 1.7 trillion yen and setting the largest loss in the company’s history.

Among them, the Vision Fund lost 293.4 billion yen on the e-commerce platform Coupang, 220.7 billion yen on DoorDash, and the Norwegian warehouse robot company AutoStore and the US shared space startup WeWork also suffered heavy losses. In addition, SoftBank lost as much as 820 billion yen in the second quarter as a weaker yen pushed up the value of dollar-denominated debt.

Masayoshi Son had said at the time that he would consider all possible cost reduction means, including layoffs, and the decision could not be questioned.