Wednesday, August 9, 2017

SoftBank In Talks To Acquire U.S. Treasury

In what some on Wall Street are calling the biggest blockbuster deal in the history of the financial sector, SoftBank confirmed today that it was in talks to acquire the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

According to SoftBank spokesperson Jonathan Hestron, the merger between SoftBank and the Treasury Department is "a good fit" because "they're in the business of printing money and so are we."

The SoftBank spokesman said that the merger would create efficiencies for both entities: "We already have so many employees and so much money flowing back and forth, this would just streamline things."...
I apologize, that is fāke news, I couldn't help myself.
It's actually a rewriting of a 2009 bit of genius from Andy Borowitz, then scribing for the Huffpo and now at the New Yorker.

I was thinking of the above because of a couple news stories on SoftBank. First though, some background, July 27:
SoftBank, WeWork, Hony Capital Form $500 Million JV for China Expansion
Is it just me or does every other deal announcement seem to have SoftBank's name attached?
It's reminiscent of China's HNA after 2015 when they reported something like $50 billion in various cross-border deals.
But, be that as it may, here's The Real Deal...
Today it was CityAM with "Softbank launches in tandem with Ofo as bike-sharing comes to Japan".
And TechCrunch: "Roivant, which creates companies around abandoned drugs, just raised $1.1 billion from SoftBank".

Yesterday we saw "SoftBank invests $1 billion in sports e-commerce firm Fanatics: sources" at Reuters.
And Techseen "SoftBank invests $7.5M in MIT-based aerostat startup Altaeros"

After the talks to go into Uber fell through we had "SoftBank Emerges as the Lead Financier for Uber Rivals" although there are now reports the Uber talks are not yet completely dead.
And so on and so on.
What is Mr. Son Up to?

A few others we caught along the way:
July 23
SoftBank, Didi Hand $2 Billion to Uber's Biggest Asian Rival
July 21 
Greylock’s Reid Hoffman and SoftBank are leading a $159 million round into a driverless-car tech startup  
June 8 
"Softbank is buying robotics firms Boston Dynamics and Schaft from Alphabet"
February 27
"Softbank’s Son: Why Do I Spend So Much Money? The Singularity Is Real"
February 15
"SoftBank's Big Fortress Takeover Is A Bet On Infrastructure, Senior Housing And Mortgages" (and some curious pre-announcement trading)