Softbank Writes Down 25% Of Its $2 Billion Investment In India

Japan's SoftBank Corp has booked an investment loss of 58.14 billion yen ($560 million) on its investments in India including cab-hailing firm Ola and e-commerce company Snapdeal.

In the earning statement for six months ended September 30, SoftBank wrote off 58.14 billion yen in the value of shares in its investments in India, which include ANI Technologies, the holding company of the country's largest cab aggregator Ola, and Jasper Infotech, which runs e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal.

Of that, 29.62 billion yen was due to a currency impairment.

The Japanese firm had led a $210 million investment in Ola and $627 million in Snapdeal in October 2014. It made follow-on investments in both firms.

Both Ola and Snapdeal are looking at raising fresh funds to sustain operations amid growing competition from rivals.

Bengaluru-based Ola has so far raised about $1.2 billion from a clutch of investors including Tiger Global Management, Matrix Partners, SoftBank Group and Didi Chuxing.

Last year, Snapdeal.com raised $500 million from Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group, Foxconn Technology Group and already existing investor, SoftBank Group, which then valued the Delhi-based firm at about $4.8 billion.

SoftBank has so far invested close to $2 billion in India and has in the past stated that it is looking to scale up investments to $10 billion over the next 5-10 years.

Last month, it said it will form a new fund with Saudi Arabia's public investment fund to invest as much as $100 billion in the global technology industry in the next five years.

For the July-September quarter, SoftBank posted a net profit of 512 billion yen, compared with 213 billion yen the year before, boosted by gains from the sale of stakes in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Finnish game maker Supercell Oy.