SoftBank – like Alphabet – has a number of subsidiaries, many of which are overseas, like Sprint. Now, according to a report coming out of Reuters, the company may begin appointing heads of these overseas businesses to their board of directors. According to the report, some of the names being tossed around for SoftBank’s board include Simon Segars who’s the CEO of ARM Holdings, Rajeev Misra who’s in charge of the $100 billion Vision Fund at SoftBank, and finally, Marcelo Claure, the CEO of Sprint. Obviously, as is the case with virtually any appointment to the board, these will be subject to shareholder approval at the company’s annual shareholders meeting, which takes place next month.
On the subject of SoftBank’s board, they have also nominated Mark Schwartz, the senior director at Goldman Sachs & Co LLC, as well as Yasir O. Al-Rumayyan who is the managing director of the Public Investment Fund in Saudi Arabia, as external directors. Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, is said to be remaining on the board. This shake up to its board of directors comes after SoftBank closed the first round of fundraising for Vision Fund. This is a fund that will be used to invest in startups, and it’s part of SoftBank CEO’s Masayoshi Son’s plan to bring jobs back to the US. This is something he announced after speaking with, then, president-elect Donald Trump last year. Son also says that the Vision Fund will be a framework for SoftBank to grow over the next “100, 200 and 300 years”.
SoftBank originally started as a wireless carrier in Japan, but its CEO, Masayoshi Son has some big plans for the company and has already expanded past being just a wireless carrier, as well as into other regions and countries. For example, SoftBank bought a majority stake in Sprint in 2013. Which was their first step into building a carrier that would be available in multiple countries (like Vodafone), but so far, that hasn’t happened. SoftBank has increased their ownership of Sprint, however, coming from a starting percentage of 70% and now somewhere around 90% owned by SoftBank. This is due to the fact that SoftBank believes in Sprint and their turnaround.