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Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, has been weighing up various options for chipmaker Arm after Nvidia walked away from buying the company.

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SoftBank offered a sharp rebuke on Wednesday to S&P Global Ratings, after the agency downgraded the Japanese giant’s credit rating.

“Over the past year, our strict defensive financial management has strengthened our financial position as never before,” SoftBank said. “It is extremely regrettable that our financial soundness was not properly assessed, and we will continue our dialogue with S&P.”

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S&P Global Ratings on Tuesday cut SoftBank’s rating to “BB” from “BB+” — where it deems a company’s credit rating as “speculative grade” or “junk.”

SoftBank shares closed down 2.3% in Tokyo on Wednesday.

SoftBank has turned itself into one of the world’s biggest tech investors over the last few years, putting billions of dollars into some of the biggest technology firms, including Uber, via its two Vision Funds. SoftBank mainly invests in companies that are not publicly listed.

Given the slump in technology shares amid globally rising interest rates, the Vision Fund segment posted a record 4.3 trillion Japanese yen ($3.1 billion) loss for the fiscal year ended Mar. 31, as business valuations plunged.

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SoftBank has been cutting its stake in Chinese e-commerce Alibaba, which it has held for more than two decades and made the Japanese firm’s founder Masayoshi Son his fortune. The aim is to shore up SoftBank’s balance sheet, as the company’s management has pledged to play “defense” and be more prudent with its investment strategy.

S&P Global Ratings nevertheless argues that SoftBank’s Vision Funds have a high exposure to unlisted company shares, which are more volatile, as a result of selling Alibaba stock that are listed in both the U.S. and Hong Kong.

“Ongoing sales of shares in China-based Alibaba Group Holding Ltd … previously a major asset for the company, have eroded the proportion of listed assets in its portfolio,” S&P said. “Furthermore, the technology stocks in which the company has primarily invested have been depressed for a prolonged period.”

SoftBank argues that S&P is not taking into account its cash position, which rose to 5.1 trillion yen in the fiscal year ended Mar. 31, versus 2.3 trillion in the same period of 2022.

“It should be noted that S&P’s assessment of the proportion of listed assets excludes cash and deposits, etc. (JPY 5.1 trillion), which are the most liquid assets,” SoftBank said.

Arm listing in focus

SoftBank in 2016 acquired British chip designer Arm — which last month confidentially filed for a listing in the U.S

Going public with Arm would be a “positive factor” for SoftBank, S&P noted, but it hasn’t included this development in its assessment because the timing and valuation of the company remain “uncertain.”

SoftBank said it has “strongly urged S&P to consider an upgrade once the proposed initial public offering of Arm is completed.”

S&P also noted that SoftBank is aiming for “disciplined financial management even in a difficult operating environment,” which continues to “underpin the company’s creditworthiness.”

Ultimately, the negative factors outweighed the positives, the ratings agency said.

“We therefore downgraded the company. The volatility of its investment portfolio and rising asset risk drive the negatives for the group. Meanwhile, financial management capability; a high level of cash; and holdings of shares in Arm, which could be listed, are positives.”

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Oracle stock jumps after $30 billion annual cloud deal revealed in filing

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Oracle stock jumps after  billion annual cloud deal revealed in filing

Oracle CEO Safra Catz speaks at the FII PRIORITY Summit in Miami Beach, Florida, on Feb. 20, 2025.

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Oracle shares jumped more than 5% after a recent filing showed a cloud deal that would add over $30 billion annually.

CEO Safra Catz is slated to share the deal news at a company meeting Monday, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The revenues are expected to start hitting in the 2028 fiscal year.

“Oracle is off to a strong start in FY26,” Catz is expected to say, according to the filing. “Our MultiCloud database revenue continues to grow at over 100%, and we signed multiple large cloud services agreements including one that is expected to contribute more than $30 billion in annual revenue starting in FY28.”

The deals revealed Monday by Catz will not affect the company’s 2026 guidance, according to the filing.

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Oracle shares hit record high

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Trump says he has group of ‘very wealthy people’ ready to buy TikTok

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Trump says he has group of ‘very wealthy people’ ready to buy TikTok

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on April 4 that he would again postpone enforcement of a law banning TikTok unless its Chinese owner ByteDance divests from the platform.

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U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News in an interview aired on Sunday that he has a group of “very wealthy people” ready to buy TikTok, whose identities he can reveal in about two weeks.

Trump added that the deal will probably need Beijing’s approval to move forward, but said “I think President Xi will probably do it,” in reference to China’s leader Xi Jinping.

The president made the off-the-cuff remarks while discussing the possibility of another pause of his “reciprocal” tariffs on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.” 

Tiktok’s fate in the U.S. has been in doubt since the approval of a law in 2024 that sought to ban the platform unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, divested from it. The legislation was driven by concerns that the Chinese government could manipulate content and access sensitive data from American users.

Earlier this month, Trump extended the deadline for ByteDance to divest from the platform’s U.S. business. It was his third extension since the Supreme Court upheld the TikTok law just a few days before Trump’s second presidential inauguration in January. The new deadline is Sept. 17. 

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, of PAFACA, had originally been set to take effect on Jan. 19, after which app store operators and internet service providers would be penalized for supporting TikTok.

TikTok went dark in the U.S. ahead of the original deadline, but was restored after Trump provided it with assurances on the extension.

Trump, who credited the app with boosting his support among young voters in the last presidential election, has maintained that he would like to see the platform stay afloat under new ownership. 

Potential buyers that have voiced interest in the app include Trump insiders such as Oracle’s Larry Ellison to firms like AppLovin and Perplexity AI

Most of the potential bidders for TikTok don't fit both Washington and Beijing's requirements

However, it’s unclear if ByteDance would be willing to sell the company. Any potential divestiture is likely to require approval from the Chinese government.

A deal that would have spun off TikTok’s U.S. operations and allowed ByteDance to retain a minority position had been in the works in April, but was derailed by the announcement of Donald Trump’s tariffs on China, Reuters reported that month.

The president previously floated a proposal for American stakeholders to buy the company and then sell a 50% stake to the U.S. government as part of a joint venture

Experts have previously told CNBC that any potential deal could face legal challenges in the U.S., depending on whether it complies with PAFACA.

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Nvidia insiders dump more than $1 billion in stock, according to report

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Nvidia insiders dump more than  billion in stock, according to report

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang speaks during the NVIDIA GTC Paris keynote, part of the 9th edition of the VivaTech technology startup and innovation fair, held at the Dôme de Paris in the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 11, 2025.

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Insiders at artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia have dumped more than $1 billion in stock over the last year, according to a report from the Financial Times.

About $500 million worth of sales occurred over the last month as the market notched new highs and shook off geopolitical tensions that had rattled investors, according to the report. The stock is up more than 17% this year despite concerns over curbs limiting AI chip sales overseas and 44% over the last three months.

Securities filings revealed that the tech titan recently unloaded about $15 million worth of shares as part of his more than $900 million plan announced in March to sell up to 6 million shares through the end of the year. Huang’s net worth totals about $138 billion, placing him as 11th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Last week, the chipmaking giant hit a fresh record and rallied for five straight days following the stock sales and an annual shareholder meeting, where the CEO called robotics the biggest opportunity for the company after AI. That helped the chipmaker regain its seat as the most valuable company ahead Microsoft and Apple.

The FT article cited a report from VerityData, which noted that the jump in shares above $150 prompted the stock dump.

Last year, Huang unloaded more than $700 million in Nvidia shares as part of a prearranged plan.

A Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment on the report.

Read the complete Financial Times report here.

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