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Masayoshi Son |
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Masayoshi Son (Son Masayoshi, born August 11, 1957 in Tosu, Saga Prefecture, Japan) is the founder and current chief executive officer of Softbank Capital.
Background
A second generation Korean in Japan, Son was not considered a Japanese citizen until his family adopted the Japanese surname Yasumoto (安本). Overcoming harsh Japanese racism against Koreans, Son pursued his interests in business by securing a meeting with Japan McDonald's president Den Fujita. Taking his advice, Son began studying English and computer science.
At age 16, Son moved to California and finished high school while staying with friends and family in South San Francisco. He then enrolled at University of California at Berkeley in which he majored in economics and took some computer science courses. Enamored by a microchip featured in a magazine, Son at age 19 became confident that computer technology would ignite the next commercial revolution.
Convinced that anything related to microchips could yield a fortune, Son decided to produce at least one entrepreneurial idea a day. He patented a translating device that he eventually sold to Sharp Electronics for $1 million. Applications of the patent include the Wizard series of Sharp PDAs.
Flush with cash, Son imported Space Invaders video arcade systems and dispersed them about the University of California at Berkeley campus. Soon after graduating from University of California at Berkeley with a BA in economics in 1980, Son started Unison in Oakland, California, which has since been bought by Kyocera.
Softbank
In 1981, Son returned to Japan to start Softbank Capital in order to publish computer-related media and software. Despite discrimination and risk-averse bankers, Son secured a $1 million loan from Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank. Unsuccessful at first, Son avoided failure when a computing goods retailer in Osaka accepted his offer to supply all the computer software and publications availabe - including his.
After a scandal-ridden Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank was forced to cancel its loan, Son found new sources of capital from Industrial Bank of Japan. To compound problems, Son was hospitalized by hepatitis from 1984 to mid-1987. During this time, Son forged ties with Microsoft Japan and acquired a 25% stake in Novell Japan.
In the late 1980s, Son was still not a citizen of Japan. He had his Japanese fiancee change her last name to Son. After marrying her and legally assuming her new last name, Son became a Japanese citizen without having to adopt a Japanese surname thus circumventing the intended naturalization laws for Korean-Japanese.
In 1994, Son lost to an investment bank in his attempt to buy Ziff-Davis. However, he won control of the Ziff-Davis tradeshows, which he purchased for $202 million. His luck changed in 1995, when he bought Ziff-Davis entirely for $2.1 billion (about $500 million more than he offered the previous year).
By 1995, Son's Softbank had acquired 37% of Yahoo! and a controlling interest in E*Trade. By 1996, Softbank had purchased COMDEX for $900 million and Kingston Technology for $2.1 billion. In 1997, Softbank invested in a wide-variety of internet-related ventures.
A composite of internet companies, Softbank became the Japanese powerhouse of the New Economy. At the peak of the "Dot-com bubble," Softbank was valued at about $140 billion - making Son's 53% stake worth almost $80 billion.
Softbank continued to absorb more companies despite their irrational valuations, which naturally Son considered cheap. Reducing his Yahoo! stake to 22.58%, Son was able to finance his myriad of acquisitions. One of the most prominent of these was Nippon Credit Bank, a once strong institution felled by bad loans.
Despite distractions such as Nippon Credit Bank (which subsequently changed its name to Aozora Bank, Son focused on becoming Japan's dominant broadband provider. By establishing Softbank Networks and BB Technologies, he set out to challenge Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, which had been slow to install broadband.
Yahoo! BB
Although Softbank's stake in Yahoo! had dwindled to 7%, Son established Yahoo! BB in September 2001 with Yahoo! Japan in which he still owned a controlling interest. After a severe devaluation of Softbank's equity, Son was forced to focus his attention on Yahoo! BB and BB Phone. Using ADSL technology that could reach speeds upwards of 10 Mbps (new service can reach about 100 Mbps), Yahoo! BB now reaches 4.3 million subscribers each paying about $20-$30 a month, but continues to lose about $100 million a month. So far, Softbank has accumulated about $1.3 billion in debt. Yet, Yahoo! BB recently acquired Japan Telecom, the then third largest broadband and landline provider with 600,000 residential and 170,000 commercial subscribers. Yahoo! BB is now Japan's leading broadband provider and expects to reach 6 million users by the end of 2005.
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