BEIJING/TOKYO (Financial Times) -- SoftBank has raised as much as $22bn in cash from deals that would sharply reduce its stake in Alibaba over the coming years, as the Japanese investor responds to a market downturn that has ravaged its technology portfolio.
The group, led by billionaire founder Masayoshi Son, has this year carried out the sale of about one-third of its Alibaba stake through prepaid forward contracts -- a type of derivative to which SoftBank has increasingly turned to raise cash immediately while retaining the possibility of holding on to the shares.
