TOKYO, Aug 8, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Japan's SoftBank Group on Monday reported a

huge net loss of $23.4 billion in the first quarter, after central bank
interest rate hikes worldwide caused tech shares to tank.

The telecoms firm that has turned into an investment behemoth posted a net
loss of 3.16 trillion yen, nose-diving from a net profit of 761.5 billion yen
in the same April-June period the previous year.

A weaker yen and the "global downward trend in share prices due to growing
concerns over economic recession driven by inflation and rising interest
rates" contributed to the slump, it said.

Among its portfolio companies that suffered large losses for the quarter were
South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang and US meal delivery platform DoorDash,
SoftBank added.

SoftBank's big stakes in global tech giants and volatile new ventures have
made for unpredictable earnings, and it has lurched between record highs and
lows in recent years.

In May, it reported its worst ever annual net loss after a bruising year in
2021-22 that saw its assets hit by a US tech share rout and a regulatory
crackdown in China.

That came after logging Japan's biggest ever annual net profit in 2020-21,
after people moved their lives online during the pandemic, sending tech
stocks soaring.

And in 2019-20, SoftBank Group reported a then-record net loss of 961.6
billion yen, as the emergence of Covid-19 compounded woes caused by its
investment in troubled office-sharing start-up WeWork.

Hideki Yasuda, senior analyst at Toyo Securities, told AFP the company
"cannot help" big losses, "because the market is down".

The company "faces a very tough situation in the immediate term", Yasuda said
before the earnings announcement.

"They have to wait for the market to rebound. You have to look at the company
through the lens of long-term investment. It may experience one or two bad
years, but over a decade or more, the world economy will keep growing and it
could grow further."