SoftBank's Masayoshi Son cleaves to guts-led investing in chat with Alibaba's Jack Ma

[TOKYO] Weeks after his billion-dollar bailout of WeWork, SoftBank Group Corp's founder and CEO Masayoshi Son reiterated his belief in an instinct-led investing style, in a discussion with Alibaba Group Holding Inc's co-founder Jack Ma.

SoftBank owns 26 per cent of China's Alibaba with its origin in a US$5 million investment in 2000, and the stake is now worth more than the Japanese firm's market capitalisation. Mr Son on Friday said the decision to invest in Alibaba was driven by gut feeling.

Other entrepreneurs Mr Son met at that time "did not have true belief in their heart". "I can feel," Mr Son said. "We are the same animal. We are both a little crazy," he said of long-time ally Mr Ma.

Mr Ma said Mr Son initially tried to invest US$50 million in the e-commerce firm, but that he declined saying it was too large a sum - part of a pattern of offering big cheques to company founders that continued with WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann.

Mr Son's comments come weeks after he was forced to bail out office-sharing startup WeWork when Mr Neumann's level of control over his firm and hard-partying ways chilled investor appetite and crashed plans for an initial public offering (IPO).

Mr Son last month said he misjudged Mr Neumann's character, after WeWork - formally The We Company - and other stuttering bets saw his US$100 billion Vision Fund report an US$8.9 billion second-quarter operating loss.

The conversation at Tokyo University between two of Asia's most prominent tech entrepreneurs comes at a point of divergence in their careers, with 55-year-old Mr Ma retiring as Alibaba's executive chairman in September and Mr Son pledging to spend his sixth decade at the helm of his investment juggernaut.

Mr Son "probably has the biggest guts in the world on doing investment", Mr Ma told attendees to the conference.

"Too much guts, sometimes I lose a lot of money," Mr Son responded.

With the highly leveraged SoftBank trying to raise funds for a second mega fund in which it is currently the only investor, its stake in Alibaba is one possible source of funds.

Mr Son previously struck a deal to sell part of the stake in 2016 ahead of SoftBank's acquisition of chip designer Arm.

"In my view I have not achieved anything yet," Mr Son said. "I'm still a challenger and everyday I'm still fighting."

That approach contrasts with Mr Ma, who stepped back from running Alibaba to focus on philanthropy.

REUTERS