Shares of SoftBank Group (9984.T) soared over 13% on Friday, closing at a record high, as investors rallied behind the Japanese technology investor’s aggressive push into artificial intelligence following a better-than-expected first-quarter profit report.
SoftBank’s stock price peaked at 14,205 yen during morning trading and ended the day up 10.39% at 13,865 yen, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
The company has made headline-grabbing investments this year, including a $30 billion commitment to OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, and leading the financing for Stargate, a $500 billion data center project in the United States.
For the April to June quarter, SoftBank reported a net profit of 421.8 billion yen ($2.87 billion), a sharp turnaround from a loss recorded during the same period last year, exceeding analysts’ expectations.
The surge in AI interest has also boosted valuations across SoftBank’s portfolio of both public and private technology companies, improving its loan-to-value ratio to 17% at the end of June from 18% at the end of March.
Macquarie analyst Paul Golding praised SoftBank’s performance, calling it “evidence of SoftBank’s quality diversified portfolio, strong underlying fundamentals, thematic tailwinds, and balance sheet resilience.”
SoftBank was the top contributor to gains in Japan’s Topix index (.TOPX), which climbed about 1.5% to surpass the 3,000-point mark for the first time ever, closing at 3,024, up 1.21%.
Seiichi Suzuki, chief equity market analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Institute, noted that investors were eager to buy SoftBank shares to keep pace with the rising Topix index. “When main indexes rise, investors target heavyweight stocks like SoftBank. Its strong earnings alongside the Topix gains drove this rally.”
The jump in SoftBank’s shares offers some relief to investors, as the stock had been trading at a significant discount—over 50% below the value of its assets—for the past five quarters.
