Masayoshi Son Says Second Vision Fund `Will Definitely Come'

(Bloomberg) -- Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. and the architect of the world’s biggest technology fund, promised that the second fund will be launched soon.

“Vision Fund 2 will definitely come, it’s just a matter of when,” Son said at a Wall Street Journal event in Tokyo. “Sometime in the near future.”

Son didn’t give a specific time-line or scale. The first Vision Fund, which debuted last year and raised more than $90 billion, has invested about 40 percent of its money so far, Son said. While making bold predictions is typical for the billionaire, talk of a second massive pool of money could be a sign that he’s getting closer to closing the first one.

The Financial Times reported last week that SoftBank and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the two main Vision Fund investors, were close to reaching the goal of amassing $100 billion. Daimler AG, three Japanese banks and Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison and Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund will make up the final $7 billion needed to reach that threshold, the newspaper said, citing unidentified people briefed on the negotiations.

When it comes to finding investments, Son invoked Yoda.

“Yoda says use the force,” he said, referring to the green Jedi master from the “Star Wars” films. “Don’t think, just feel it.”

He continued: “Every time my team does due diligence, they do it for one, two, three months and do a deep dive. But my first insight in the first few minutes is sometimes more meaningful than detailed calculation.”

“You do it so many times, you don’t even need to think,” Son said. “You can just feel it.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Yuji Nakamura in Tokyo at ynakamura56@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Reed Stevenson

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