Global investor SoftBank Group Corp, on Wednesday in a statement said Rajeev Misra will be stepping down from his roles as a corporate officer and executive vice president.
The recent slide in technology stocks of its portfolio firms has resulted in a record loss for the Japanese investment group. Sixty-year-old Misra will continue to retain his post as head of SoftBank Investment Advisers, which looks after the first Vision Fund’s existing investments.
SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son will take over new investments under the second Vision Fund, the statement noted.
The breakaway by Misra, who was integral in the transformation of SoftBank into one of the world's biggest tech investors, deepens the sense of strategic drift at the Japanese conglomerate.
In May, the Vision Fund unit reported its biggest ever loss as the value of its portfolio slid and a string of executives including group Chief Operating Officer Marcelo Claure quit the company.
Earlier this month, Sumer Juneja was given additional responsibilities to oversee its European investments. The responsibilities for Juneja come amid management churn at SoftBank Investment Advisers as Vision Fund losses mount.
Last month, Bloomberg reported that Misra will be stepping back from his main role at SoftBank Global Advisers to launch his external fund. Later in the month, another report said that Yanni Pipilis and Munish Varma, both managing partners at SoftBank Investment Advisers, are also leaving to join the fund led by Misra.
The impending departures come as Vison Fund, known for cutting big ticket cheques to startups globally including in India, posted a $23.1 billion loss in the April-June quarter. During the quarter it had approved investments worth around $600 million, compared with $20.6 billion in the same period last year.
Son, in May, said it may cut its startup investments in this fiscal year ending March 2023. Last month, he further said that it will limit the second Vision Fund just to managing its current portfolio of investments while planning workforce cuts as well at the fund. "We need to cut costs with no sacred areas," said Son.
Its recent investments in India made from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 include consumer tech startups such as Lenskart, Meesho, and Unacademy, as well as software as a service, or SaaS, investments such as Juspay and Whatfix.
