By Sam Nussey
TOKYO (Reuters) – SoftBank Group Corp is likely to trim its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, an analyst said on Tuesday, as the Japanese tech conglomerate invests in unlisted startups through its second Vision Fund and repurchases its shares.
SoftBank sold 20 million Alibaba shares in the last quarter and “will need to sell more in 2022,” Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal wrote in a note.
The group will need $40-45 billion of cash this year, Goyal estimates, if it maintains the current pace of investing in startups and share repurchases as part of the 1 trillion yen ($8.7 billion) programme announced in November.
While earlier this month SoftBank said there was no link between Alibaba registering a U.S. share facility and any plan to sell down its stake, the group is widely expected to trim its assets following the collapse of the deal to sell chip designer Arm to Nvidia.
($1 = 114.5100 yen)
(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Sam Holmes)