SoftBank Reveals $6.5B Loss from Uber, WeWork Turmoil

Re:SoftBank Reveals $6.5B Loss from Uber, WeWork Turmoil by Traster on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @05:35AM (#21461276)

It seems pretty clear that Softbank were badly misvaluing We and Uber. The second they hit the public markets suddenly Softbank could no longer sustain their paper valuations which is causing this loss. It's kind of funny that Softbank can mark its own homework on this - they buy the company and then because the investment isn't liquid they can basically choose any valuation they want for the companies they own. It'll be interesting to see how sceptical people are of the other companies in the Softbank portfolio. For example, they acquired ARM for $31Bn- what are they claiming it's worth now?

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Re:SoftBank Reveals $6.5B Loss from Uber, WeWork Turmoil by sam_lowry_ on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @06:51AM (#21461611)

Arm is a de facto monopoly, WeWork and Uber are not

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Re:SoftBank Reveals $6.5B Loss from Uber, WeWork Turmoil by dana321 on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @08:33AM (#21462309)

Exactly. ARM's intellectual property (ie. CPUs) is used in more devices than Intel.

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Re:SoftBank Reveals $6.5B Loss from Uber, WeWork Turmoil by treis on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @10:05AM (#21463249)

>Softbank were badly misvaluing We and Uber.

I don't think these two really belong together. We is probably worth nothing, and even that might be generous. Uber is worth billions with the only real debate being how many billions.

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Re:SoftBank Reveals $6.5B Loss from Uber, WeWork Turmoil by bpt3 on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @10:51AM (#21463713)

If Uber never figures out how to turn a profit at scale, it'll be worth approximately $0 at some point in the future.

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Re:SoftBank Reveals $6.5B Loss from Uber, WeWork Turmoil by wolco on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @10:42AM (#21463595)

They expanded quickly but haven't reached profitability. Raising prices/shuting down growth still wouldn't be enough to reach that point.

If Lyft died and could raise prices perhaps as it stands now they are not worth billions because of debt/losses.

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Re:SoftBank Reveals $6.5B Loss from Uber, WeWork Turmoil by navigatesol on Thursday November 07, 2019 @09:31PM (#21479521)

This is Monday morning quarter backing. Everyone knows We is/was worthless. But Uber,AirBnB,Slack, Tesla, Beyond Meat..all's well.

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Re:SoftBank Reveals $6.5B Loss from Uber, WeWork Turmoil by dentemple on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @10:48AM (#21463686)

WeWork has actual real-estate assets. So, they do have some worth.

Certainly not Softbank's valuation-levels of worth, but it's still not nothing.

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Re:SoftBank Reveals $6.5B Loss from Uber, WeWork Turmoil by levthedev on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @12:12PM (#21464577)

WeWork, for the most part, does not own actual real-estate assets. They mostly have actual real-estate liabilities - leases.

They do own a relatively small amount of property, like their partial ownership of the Lord and Taylor building, which for reference is now considered a huge mistake (it's bleeding money).

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Re:SoftBank Reveals $6.5B Loss from Uber, WeWork Turmoil by LandR on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @10:35AM (#21463529)

>Uber is worth billions with the only real debate being how many billions.

Assuming Uber ever turns profitable.

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Re:SoftBank Reveals $6.5B Loss from Uber, WeWork Turmoil by juskrey on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @07:54AM (#21461991)

How can one value something fat-tailed?

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