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- SoftBank made about $12 billion after Sprint’s stock price rocketed 70% on Tuesday.
- The Japanese conglomerate is Sprint’s parent, owning nearly 85% of the wireless carrier’s shares.
- The stock surge boosted the value of SoftBank’s holding from about $17 billion to $29 billion.
- Sprint’s shares shot up after a federal judge approved its mega-merger with T-Mobile.
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SoftBank made about $12 billion this morning, courtesy of Sprint’s surging stock price.
The Japanese conglomerate owns about 84% of Sprint’s shares, according to Bloomberg data. Sprint’s stock rocketed 70% on Tuesday after a federal judge approved the carrier’s $26 billion mega-merger with T-Mobile. As a result, SoftBank’s roughly 3.5 billion Sprint shares soared in value from about $17 billion to $29 billion.
Sprint’s shares almost halved in the six months to the end of January, as investors doubted it could compete with industry titans AT&T and Verizon, and feared regulators wouldn’t allow it to merge with T-Mobile due to competition concerns.
A return at last
The sudden stock rally means SoftBank may have finally made a return on its investment. It shelled out just over $20 billion for about 70% of Sprint in 2012, then gradually increased its stake to almost 85% — the threshold at which it would have to buy the company.
SoftBank will welcome the good news after a challenging few months. Its reputation and balance sheet have taken a battering from the collapse of WeWork’s IPO and challenges at Uber, DoorDash, and other startups it has invested in.
