The injection of funds deepens the potential losses the giant tech fund will take from Greensill’s failure
SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund injected at least $400 million into Greensill Capital at the end of last year, according to people familiar with the matter, deepening the potential losses the giant tech investor faces in the startup’s collapse.
The infusion of cash was in addition to the $1.5 billion the Vision Fund had invested in Greensill in 2019. The money, not previously reported, was used as a financial backstop when another Vision Fund company, construction startup Katerra, came close to defaulting on a loan to Greensill, the people said.
Greensill, which specialized in making short-term cash-advance-style loans to companies,filed for insolvencythis week after regulators took over its banking unit and Credit Suisse Group AG froze investments funds critical to the startup’s operations.
Greensill packaged loans to companies into securities, known as notes, that werepurchased by the Credit Suisse fundsand sold to investors as low-risk, money-market-style investments.
SoftBank,founded by billionaire Masayoshi Son, is a giant in the field of investing, with interests spanning microchips, self-driving cars, satellites, e-commerce and mobile-phone networks. The Japanese conglomerate’s $100 billion Vision Fund, and a smaller successor fund, have invested in over 80 companies. In addition to Greensill, these include Uber Technologies Inc. and TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd.
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