SoftBank Acquires 20 Percent Stake in Uber
Uber’s value drops by about 30 percent.
After a several month process, Japanese tech company SoftBank Group has acquired a 20 percent stake in Uber. According to the Wall Street Journal, the acquisition dropped Uber’s value by 30 percent from $70 billion to $48 billion.
In addition to stakes in Uber, SoftBank brought Sprint in 2012, British chipmaker ARM in 2016 and American robotics company Boston Dynamics in 2017. The tech giant also has stakes in Uber competitors like China’s Didi Chuxing, Southeast Asia’s Grab, and India’s Ola.
Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick stepped down from his position earlier this year following several scandals. However, he still has a seat on the company’s board of directors and controls 16 percent of voting power.
With SoftBank’s new move comes new governance terms at Uber. The size of the board will increase from 11 to 17, with two of the seats going to SoftBank. This will ultimately dilute the power that Kalanick has.
