Japanese giant SoftBank Group posted a record loss of $23.4 billion. The company’s Vision Fund investment unit contributed to the all-time high downturn of $21.4 billion. The company suffered losses when tech stocks dropped sharply in global markets. Compared with an acquisition cost of $48.2 billion, Vision Fund's stakes in 269 firms were worth $37.2 billion in late June. At the same time, SoftBank wrote down the value of unlisted Vision Funds’ assets by $8.43 billion. Global markets have been in turmoil amid rampant inflation and a crackdown on the technology sector launched by the Chinese government. At the end of 2020, Chinese authorities began to put restrictions on major IT companies, including Alibaba, Tencent, and DiDi, a taxi-hailing service. These companies were subjected to inspections and heavy fines. In addition, the government decoupled its companies from Western markets, explaining the imposed measures by the leakage of users' personal data.
