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SoftBank shares plunge as much as 10% after selling Nvidia stake
Pedestrians wearing protective masks walk past signage for SoftBank Corp. near a store in Tokyo, Japan, on May 15, 2020.
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Shares of SoftBank Group plunged as much as 10% Wednesday after the Japanese giant said it had sold its entire stake in U.S. chip giant Nvidia for $5.83 billion. The capital will be used to fund SoftBank’s $22.5 billion investment in ChatGPT parent OpenAI, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
Shares of SoftBank Group last traded more than 5% lower.
In its earnings report, SoftBank said it sold 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October. It also trimmed its T-Mobile position, raising $9.17 billion.
“We want to provide a lot of investment opportunities for investors, while we can still maintain financial strength,” said SoftBank’s chief financial officer, Yoshimitsu Goto, during an investor presentation.
While the decision to unload Nvidia shares may have caught some investors off guard, it isn’t SoftBank’s first exit from the U.S. chip heavyweight.
The company’s Vision Fund was an early Nvidia supporter, reportedly building a $4 billion stake in 2017 before fully divesting in January 2019. Despite the latest sale, SoftBank remains closely tied to Nvidia through its broader business interests.
—CNBC’s Dylan Butts and April Roach contributed to this report.
