Sun Zhengyi Became Commander In Chief? Founder Of UNIQLO Farewell Softbank

After 18 years of co operation with Softbank founder Sun Zhengyi, founder of UNIQLO Ryui Masa chose to part with him. In name, Ryui Jungyo concentrating on running his own company, but in the eyes of the outside world, Ryui Masa's departure is much more emotional. After Sun Zhengyi's "defeat" Wework and "tram" Uber, his radical investment style has also become the focus of the storm. As an important ally of Sun Zhengyi, as well as the few people who dare to speak against the Sun Zhengyi in Softbank, Ryui Masa's departure at this time is unavoidable to make people feel that the two divergent dramas are under the different ideas.
Losing allies
The alliance between Sun Zhengyi and Ryui Masa will end in 2019. Local time 27, Softbank issued a statement shows that UNIQLO parent company CEO Ryui Masa will officially retire from the Softbank group board in December 31st. This means that 18 years after joining the Softbank board in June 2001, Ryui Masa will no longer work with Sun Zhengyi.
According to Softbank, Liu Jing is applying for resignation and accepted by Softbank, and Ryui Masa resigned on the grounds that he wanted to concentrate on his job. This is confirmed by UNIQLO. UNIQLO also said that Ryui Masa's resignation is aimed at expanding overseas business and strengthening domestic business base.
After Ryui Masa withdrew, only two external directors were left in Softbank's board of directors, namely Iijima Shiakiki, chairman of Mitsui property and Matsuo Toyo, Professor of artificial intelligence at University of Tokyo. It is worth noting that the latter has almost no experience in corporate governance. Two years ago, Sun Zhengyi's other friend, the founder and CEO Nagamori Shigenobu of Japan electric group, also resigned as external director of Softbank. CNBC's comment on Nagamori Shigenobu's resignation was "Softbank lost its most vocal voice".
At present, for Ryui Masa's successor, Softbank has confirmed that no candidate has been identified yet, but how much Ryui Masa has left is sadly. According to people familiar with the matter, Sun Zhengyi still wants Ryui Masa to remain in office despite differences in business strategy between the two. But Ryui Masanori hopes to focus on his own business, help the news group to expand rapidly in new global markets such as Italy, India and Vietnam, and invest heavily in robotics to improve the logistics and supply chain in order to adapt to the new era of e-commerce. In September of this year, UNIQLO opened the first store in Italy in Milan.
Ryui Masa is not a simple person. In the past ten years, Ryui Masa and Sun Zhengyi have almost contracted the throne of Japan's richest man, but according to the latest figures released last Friday, Ryui Masa's social value has reached $30 billion 200 million, compared with Sun Zhengyi, who ranks second in Japan's richest list, is worth only $20 billion 700 million. At the height of the limelight, Sun Zhengyi was once close to the world's richest man by investing in YAHOO and Ali, but in a series of "rollover" operations, Sun Zhengyi landed in today's fields.
"Disagreement"
If the general resignation, Ryui Masa's departure may not arouse much splash, but the crux of the problem now is that this may have been a "rift" among the comrades who fought for 18 years. In the eyes of the outside world, Ryui Masa may be a rare person in Softbank who can play a different tune with Sun Zhengyi. One example that can be corroborated is that in June this year, at the Softbank shareholders' meeting, Liu well was straight forward: "no matter what Sun Zhengyi does, I always raise objections. It is a good thing to have dreams. Nothing is more important than practical management. We should still keep our feet on the ground."
At that time, Sun Zhengyi was ambitious, saying that the value of Softbank portfolio could grow 33 times to 200 trillion yen in the next 20 years. At that time, Ryui Masa pretended to be angry in the laughter of the directors, and reminded shareholders to keep an eye on Sun Zhengyi, otherwise he would lose control. The defeat came too fast. In October this year, the world's largest "two landlord" WeWork suspended the IPO plan, which opened up a series of chain reactions. The bubble comment was overwhelming, and Softbank group, as the largest shareholder of WeWork, became instant target.
From this point of view, Ryui Masa's departure seems to be interlinked. A noteworthy time point was two years ago, in August 25th of 2017, Liu well was talking about Sun Zhengyi in the media interview. In his evaluation, Sun Zhengyi had a bad problem, that is, the interest point kept changing. "Softbank is already a big enterprise, and can't talk big," but Ryui Masa immediately followed the conversation, saying, "but this is also the charm of Sun Zhengyi."
It is worth noting that on the very day, Sun Zhengyi, the top investor, once again shot at $4 billion 400 million, and Sun Zhengyi was the target of WeWork. At that time, WeWork was very eye-catching with the auras of the world's fifth largest start-up companies. Market rumors, when WeWork co founder and former CEO Adam Neumann only took Sun Zhengyi around the WeWork headquarters for 12 minutes, contributed to the first big investment of the latter 4 billion 400 million dollars, which was also one of Vc firm's largest single investment to the window business at that time.
One is investors, the other is industrialists. Such generalizations may be more appropriate. Compared with Sun Zhengyi's radicalism, Ryui Masa seemed more practical. When he mentioned Sun Zhengyi earlier, he showed that he did not want to be an investor, but he wanted to be a real industrialist. The annual results of the 2019 financial year of the sales group announced in October this year showed that the sales group achieved a profit of 2 trillion and 300 billion yen, up 7.5% over the same period last year.
For Ryui Masa and Sun Zhengyi's investment philosophy "collision" and for WeWork and other failed investment treatment, Beijing Business Daily reporter contacted Softbank, but the deadline did not receive a reply.
Frustrated Softbank
In the moment of losing Ryui Masa, Softbank is going through a very long period of time, and all of this should start with WeWork. The failure of listing, the avalanche of valuation, and the valuation of US $47 billion in the twinkling of an eye left us $8 billion. Forbes once raised the valuation of WeWork to $2 billion 800 million, and everyone seemed to be able to hear the bubble burst. Sun Zhengyi also rarely bowed his head, saying that "the wrong judgment on Neumann is the biggest mistake he made."
After investing billions of dollars in WeWork, Sun Zhengyi admitted that he had turned WeWork into a monster and had to bail it out. At that time, WeWork announced that it had reached a $9 billion 500 million rescue agreement with Softbank. Softbank will get WeWork80% shares and control, and WeWork will become Softbank's affiliate company, but not a subsidiary. In contrast, he rushed out with his $1 billion 700 million severance package, while Sun Zhengyi was busy paying for his madness.
After this incident, Sun Zhengyi almost fell off the altar, and Japanese bankers who had been firmly behind the Softbank began to reexamine Softbank and even Sun Zhengyi. Executives at these banks generally reacted to their doubts about the billionaire's management of Softbank and the $100 billion vision fund. It is understood that in the past 40 years, the Japanese banking industry has provided more than 15 billion US dollars to Softbank and vision fund. Interest is reciprocal. Data from Freeman&Co, a market research firm, show that Softbank has paid more than $1 billion 900 million to global banks since 2015, most of which went to Japanese banks.
It is worth noting that WeWork is not the only investment case Sun Zhengyi failed. In May of this year, Sun Zhengyi successively threw in the $7 billion 700 million net originator Uber, and the first issue price of IPO was $45. But in the past time, Uber was constantly in trouble, layoffs, selling businesses and huge losses. At present, Uber's share price is only 30.17 US dollars / share, and its market value is US $51 billion 464 million. On the day of listing, Uber has broken down and its market value has fallen below 70 billion US dollars. At the performance level, Uber has also suffered 6 consecutive losses.
Affected by WeWork and Uber, Softbank suffered a loss of up to US $6 billion 500 million in the second quarter ended September, which is also the first quarterly loss of Softbank in 14 years. Sun Zhengyi said in a press conference at that time, Softbank's investment in WeWork was dragged down by the vision fund. At present, Softbank is trying to cope with the failure of WeWork, and has promised to strengthen its management of WeWork. However, the outside world has generally criticized the Softbank. The reason is that there is hardly any independent voice in Softbank which can challenge Sun Zhengyi's judgement.