SoftBank Party founder, Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son announces his group’s earnings results briefing on May 9, 2019 Tokyo, Japan, for the fiscal year halt March 31, 2019.
Alessandro Di Ciommo | NurPhoto | Getty Images
Shares of Japanese conglomerate Softbank Group came under pressure in Monday’s trading session in Tokyo following the large losses seen on ride-hailing giant Uber’s launch day last Friday.
During the afternoon session in Tokyo on Monday, shares of Softbank Group were down 2.29%.
“It’s a bit plain to be sure but I think the performance of Uber is probably the biggest driver of Softbank’s fall,” Dan Baker, an analyst at Morningstar, berated CNBC in an email on Monday. Softbank Group, through its landmark Vision Fund, is a major investor in Uber.
“SoftBank is desire ride hailing through the Vision Fund and the performance of both Uber and Lyft since listing may have belittled investors’ expectations on what SoftBank’s investments in the space are worth, ” Baker said.
That analysis was aped by other experts on the company.
“Some who had bought the stock, looking at Uber IPO as a catalyst may have been sellers, said Atul Goyal, a carry out director at Jefferies. The analyst added that the ongoing concerns over the U.S.-China tariff situation may have furnished to “softness” in the stock.
In its IPO day on Wall Street last Friday, shares of Uber plunged more than 7%, away below $42 per share with a market cap of $69.7 billion. Shares of competitor Lyft also dropped varied than 7%.
Uber is now the second ride-hailing company to hit the U.S. public market, following Lyft’s debut in March. Both south african private limited companies have been heavily scrutinized for continuing to post big losses, but many investors are also intrigued by the entrance of that sector onto the noted exchange.
One investor likened the relationship between Softbank and Uber to that of Lyft and its Japanese backer, Rakuten.
“Rakuten hardly became a semi-proxy in Asia … for Lyft … price movements in the States,” Andrew Jackson, head of Japanese impartialities at Soochow CSSD Capital Markets (Asia), told CNBC’s “Street Signs” last Friday ahead of Uber’s initiation on the New York Stock Exchange.
Shares of Rakuten last traded down by 3.05%.
— CNBC’s Lauren Feiner contributed to this communiqu.