Analysts and market watchers have pointed to Masayoshi Son’s recent reduction of pledged shares as a notable development for SoftBank Group Corp. (SOBKY), following a sharp rebound in the company’s share price fueled by renewed enthusiasm around artificial intelligence. A regulatory filing earlier this month showed Son cut the number of shares pledged to lenders by 19.4 million, lowering the value of pledged collateral by about $2.1 billion. As a result, roughly 31% of his SoftBank holdings are now pledged, down from close to 39% in March 2020, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. The move comes as SoftBank shares surged almost 200% to a peak at the end of October, before easing back amid concerns that optimism around AI may have become stretched.
Market participants have suggested Son may have taken advantage of higher share prices to reduce leverage when the stock was trading around 25,000 per share in October. Amir Anvarzadeh, a market strategist at Asymmetric Advisors in Singapore, said Son probably used the elevated valuation to take shares off pledge, while noting that the shares have since come under pressure. Despite the pullback, SoftBank remains on track for its biggest annual gain since 2013, underscoring how closely the company’s performance has tracked shifting sentiment toward AI-related investments.
The same filing also showed that a Singapore-based investment firm ultimately controlled by Son now holds $1.1 billion of SoftBank shares, marking a change from his previous reliance on Japanese entities to manage his stake. Son has historically used SoftBank shares as collateral with lenders including Mizuho Financial Group, Deutsche Bank and Julius Baer, and has frequently moved shares among entities he controls. His personal fortune, estimated by Bloomberg at $35.3 billion and largely tied to his stake of just over a third in SoftBank, has swung alongside the group’s aggressive AI bets, including past investments in companies such as Nvidia 
NVDA and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing 
TSM, which earlier this year briefly lifted him to the position of Japan’s richest person