SoftBank Unveils New Plan to Buy Back 500 Billion Yen of Shares

(Bloomberg) -- SoftBank Group Corp. said it will buy back as much as 500 billion yen ($4.7 billion) of its own stock, continuing a repurchase effort that has boosted its share price after heavy losses earlier this year.

The Tokyo-based company said it would buy back up to 5.75% of its shares, according to a statement. It said this month that it had finished an earlier repurchase program, also for 500 billion yen.

Founder Masayoshi Son turned to asset sales and buybacks to support his stock price after losses earlier this year. SoftBank booked a record 1.36 trillion yen operating loss for the year ended March 31, as it wrote down the value of investments in WeWork and Uber Technologies Inc.

Son’s response has been to announce three 500-billion-yen buybacks in a span of three months. The last two are part of plan to re-purchase as much as 2 trillion yen of stock.

Son also hosted SoftBank’s annual shareholders meeting on Thursday.

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