SoftBank Group Corp. is considering audacious fundraising plans, including a public offering of its $100 billion investment fund and the launch of a second fund of at least that size, as it looks to seize on an exploding startup scene, people familiar with the matter said.
More immediately, SoftBank 9984, -0.26% is negotiating with the sultanate of Oman for an investment of $1 billion or more in its existing $100 billion Vision Fund, which raised nearly all of its cash from Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, the people said.
The fund’s staff is hustling to keep up with the frantic pace of deal making by SoftBank founder and Chief Executive Masayoshi Son, who has invested nearly all of the money that Vision Fund took in just two years ago.
Highlighting the need for new funds: Son recently visited China, where he negotiated informal deals worth several billion dollars that Vision Fund doesn’t yet have, one of the people said. Vision Fund had planned to invest its $100 billion over four years, some of the people said, but will have done so in just over two.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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