By Sam Nussey
TOKYO (Reuters) - SoftBank Group Corp <9984.T> reported its first quarterly loss in 14 years on Wednesday, with its giant Vision Fund suffering a 970 billion yen ($8.9 billion/£6.9 billion) loss on falling valuations of top tech bets such as WeWork and Uber.
The depth of the loss cast doubt on founder Masayoshi Son's high-risk strategy of investing in cash-burning startups, as he is trying to raise a second massive investment fund.
The Japanese investment powerhouse posted an operating loss of 704 billion yen ($6.5 billion) in the July-September quarter compared to a 706 billion yen profit in the same period a year earlier and a 48 billion yen loss forecast by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
Last month SoftBank was forced to spend more than $10 billion to bail out office-sharing startup WeWork after its IPO attempt flopped.
The fair value of SoftBank's investment in WeWork decreased by $3.4 billion in the second quarter.
The Saudi Arabia-backed Vision Fund, which is run by ex-Deutsche Bank banker Rajeev Misra, has invested $70.7 billion in 88 companies at the end of September. Those investments are now worth $77.6 billion excluding exits, it said.
With increased market scrutiny over the path to profitability for many of its bets on unproven startups, SoftBank is struggling to take them to market - an essential step to unlock capital to keep its investment juggernaut growing.
The value of most of the fund's listed investments, including Uber <UBER.N>, Slack Technologies <WORK.N> and Guardant Health <GH.O> fell over the quarter.
At Uber that slide has continued as losses continue to mount and a post-IPO share lock-up ends, with its shares hitting new lows this week.
SoftBank's investing activities are propped up by other pillars of Son's empire including domestic telco SoftBank Corp <9434.T>, which on Tuesday reported a 9% rise in second-quarter operating profit, beating estimates, buoyed by its cash-cow mobile business.
SoftBank did not release a forecast for the current business year, saying there were too many uncertain factors.
(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
