SoftBank swings to profit after Masayoshi Son's AI bets pay off

SoftBank Group swung to a quarterly profit, riding on gains from its bets on Nvidia and startups in a boon for founder Masayoshi Son's bets on artificial intelligence technologies. A recovery at SoftBank's signature Vision Fund and the sale of assets such as its T-Mobile U.S. holdings are helping Son double down on bets geared to help him capitalize on booming investment in AI hardware. SoftBank, which had sold 4.8 billion worth of its stake in the U.S. telecom company in June, on Thursday revealed the sale of another 3 billion of the U.S. carrier's stock. The Tokyo-based company reported net income of 421.82 billion ( 2.9 billion) in its fiscal first quarter, more than double the average of analyst estimates. The Vision Fund logged a 451.39 billion profit, helped by a recovery in tech valuations and gains on holdings such as Coupang, Auto1 Group SE, Symbotic and Swiggy.