ソフトバンク創業者である孫正義がアリババの取締役会を辞任します
SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son is bowing out of Alibaba's board
Alibaba's founder Jack Ma, meanwhile, is exiting SoftBank's board, marking an end to almost two decades of close business partnerships between the companies.
そして、アリババの創業者ジャックマーはソフトバンクの取締役会から降りることになり、これら2社のほぼ20年に渡る緊密なパートナーシップの終わりを示しています。
Masayoshi Son, CEO and founder of SoftBank, will be stepping down as a director from the board of Alibaba Group, the Chinese e-commerce giant. Son made the surprise announcement at Alibaba’s annual shareholder meeting today, Bloomberg reports. He's been on the board since 2005, having invested in it six years earlier.
ソフトバンクの孫正義は、中国の巨大電子商取引企業であるアリババグループの取締役会を辞任します。 孫は今日、アリババの年次株主会議において驚きの発表を行ったとブルームバーグが報じています。 彼は2005年から取締役会におり、その6年前に投資しました。
Son’s departure will mark the end of his more than two decades of work with Alibaba that's seen it go from scrappy startup to behemoth. He invested a $20 million stake in the company in 1999 when it was founded by Jack Ma. The company went on to become a multi-billion dollar enterprise, and one of the jewels in SoftBank's investment crown.
孫の辞任は、20年以上のアリババとの協業の終了を占めることになるでしょう。 この間にアリババは、ずんぐりとしたスタートアップから巨大な獣になりました。 彼はジャックマーが設立した1999年に、同社に2000万ドルの株式投資を行いました。 同社は数十億ドルの企業になりました。これはソフトバンクの投資の王冠のなかでも一番の宝石なのです。
- scrappy - ズングリした
- behemoth ｰ 巨獣
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To complicate matters, Jack Ma is stepping down from SoftBank’s board at the same time, a position he's held since 2007. Ma and Son have been close friends since the two meet through Alibaba at the turn of the millennium. Despite the strange timing, the friends aren’t breaking up, exactly. “It’s not like we had a fight,” Son said during the Alibaba shareholder meeting. “This was perfectly amicable.”
複雑な問題として、これと同時にジャック・マーがソフトバンクの取締役会から降りるということです。 このポジションに彼は2007年からいました。 マーはと孫は2人がミレニアムの転換でアリババを通じて出会ったときからの親しい友人でした。 この奇妙なタイミンにも関わらず、この友人関係は壊れていません。 「私達が喧嘩したのではありません」 孫はアリババの株主総会で言いました。 「これはまったく友好的でした。」
Still, it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where the pair didn’t have some sort of falling out or at least come to a mutual understanding that their respective businesses would be better off without each other. Both Alibaba and SoftBank thrived for the most part during the last decade — it will be interesting to watch the companies continue to evolve without the mutual support from Ma and Son.
今の所、何らかのシナリオを想像することは難しい。この2人が仲間割れすることはないのですから。 あるいは、そのようなことがあったとしても、少なくとも、 彼らそれぞれのビジネスは、互いに相手がいなくても、うまくいくということを、それぞれが理解するでしょう。 アリババとソフトバンクは直近10年のほとんどの間に、最も反映しました。 ― マーと孫が、互いに支援しあわず、進化し続ける、この2つの企業に注目しておけば面白いことになるでしょう。
- falling out - 仲間割れ
- mutual - 互いに
- respective - それぞれの
- thrived - 繁栄した
― 以降は後ほど（多分） ―
SOFTBANK AND ALIBABA ARE STILL TIGHT
— For the most part, Son’s departure from Alibaba and Ma’s from SoftBank won’t affect their companies. This is especially true if Son’s statement is to be believed; the pair will likely still rely on each other for business advice even if it’s just in the background.
Plus, SoftBank is still a major investor in Alibaba; Son’s $20 million buy-in from 1999 is now worth upwards of $150 billion. Son used this stake to raise some much-needed capital during SoftBank’s financial struggles last year as it lurched from one disaster to another.
SOFTBANK IS FLAILING A BIT
— Though SoftBank is, as a whole, still worth hundreds of billions of dollars, the company has been stuck in a shitstorm created by WeWork, and other misguided investments, like the huge losses it incurred on a robot pizza business that never came to fruition.
When SoftBank first bought a $300 million stake in WeWork back in 2017, the future looked bright and profitable. Shared workspaces at ridiculously high prices? Count us in. That investment engorged to $4.4 billion later that year.
But 2019 was a very dark time for WeWork, complete with billions in losses and a botched IPO. Things got so bad that SoftBank pulled the plug on a $3.3 billion investor buyout plan in April — a plan mostly set to help WeWork founder Adam Neumann, who is now suing SoftBank over its decision to renege.
SoftBank is still backing WeWork with other funds, but by all accounts, the companies won’t be working together for much longer.
A BRIGHT FUTURE, PERHAPS
— Son and SoftBank are now in the process of offloading 4.5 trillion yen (about $42 billion) in assets for stock buybacks and debt payments. Despite the investment firm’s recent troubles, Son was optimistic as usual in the company’s recent investment meeting.
Son says he’s “graduating” from Alibaba’s board. It’s the end of an era for sure — one that will hopefully give him more time to figure out where SoftBank fits into the new decade, and how it can rehabilitate its reputation.
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