SoftBank reportedly plans to lend employees as much as $ 20 billion to invest in VC fund – TechCrunch

SoftBank has a facility to lend up to $ 20 billion to its employees, including CEO Masayoshi Son, to have that capital reinvested in SoftBank's own Vision venture fund, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. It's a very unusual move that can be risky considering how much exposure SoftBank Group has overall in its startup games, but the upside is that it can potentially fill as much as a fifth of the recently announced second Vision Fund's total $ 108 billion target raise from a highly adjusted investor pool.

SoftBank revealed plans for its second Vision Fund last month, including $ 38 billion from SoftBank itself, as well as commitments from Apple, Microsoft and more. The company also took a similar approach to the original Vision Fund, WSJ reports, with shares from employees equipped with loans totaling $ 8 billion of that $ 1[ads1]00 billion commitment.

The potential payout is large, provided that the fund has some solid winners who achieve settlement events that yield large returns that employees can then use to pay off the original loans and walk away with profits. This is definitely a risk, especially for the current global financial client. As WSJ notes, Uber shares that the Vision Fund I purchased now is worth less than what SoftBank originally paid for them according to sources, and SoftBank is betting that WeWork appears to be another company whose IPO might not make as much profit , if any, money for later investors.