SoftBank Strategic Investment Fund

According to reporting synthesized across the financial press, the SIF was a co-investment pool through which principals associated with SoftBank Group invested personal money, distinct from both the Vision Fund and SoftBank's own balance sheet ¹. Cross-reference of Financial Times, Bloomberg and CNBC reporting names Rajeev Misra, Akshay Naheta, and Abu Dhabi's sovereign investor Mubadala as participants in the vehicle ¹. Mubadala is led by Khaldoon Al Mubarak, and according to that reporting the same Gulf sovereign capital that anchored SoftBank's funds appears alongside the SoftBank-side principals in this pool ¹.

Cross-reference of the available reporting indicates that the SIF functioned as a single-trade special-purpose pool rather than a multi-deal portfolio vehicle, since targeted searches of the financial press identified no second deal funded through the same Mubadala-plus-executives personal-money structure ¹. According to that analysis, Vision Fund deals Naheta also led, and the later SB Northstar listed-equity book, were separate vehicles drawing on SoftBank or Vision Fund capital rather than the personal pool ¹. According to February 2020 reporting, the Wirecard convertible was framed as the track record marketed to raise a larger Abu Dhabi fund, which the analysis reads as indicating the SIF was treated as a demonstration of the structure rather than scaled into a portfolio ¹.

According to the synthesized reporting, the SIF's documented transaction was a roughly €900 million convertible bond in the German payments processor Wirecard, arranged in April 2019 ¹. In September and October 2019, Credit Suisse arranged the sale of €900 million in notes exchangeable into Wirecard shares through the special-purpose vehicle Argentum Netherlands BV, using the original convertible as collateral and issuing the notes to outside institutional investors ². According to GlobalCapital, the arrangement let SoftBank-side investors and Mubadala recover principal and book tens of millions in upfront cash profit while committing close to zero net capital, with any losses falling on the outside bondholders rather than the SoftBank group ².

When Wirecard filed for insolvency in June 2020, the Argentum notes fell from about 73.5 to about 13.5 cents on the euro and were unwound through a modified Dutch auction overseen by Credit Suisse around July 8, 2020, according to the reporting ². According to that reporting, the structure placed the connected principals in a senior, tradeable position that was offloaded before the collapse while outside investors absorbed the loss ².

Analysis of the available record indicates that no standalone SEC or court disclosure of the SIF as an entity was located, and targeted searching surfaced no regulator, prosecutor, or civil claim directed at the pool as a vehicle ³. According to that record, the Quinn Emanuel-filed CSV complaint against SoftBank concerns WeWork and does not mention the SIF ³. Analysis of the available record further indicates that scrutiny of the personal co-investment structures came through investigative press and the Elliott Management activist pressure of February 2020 rather than through formal action against the fund ³.

According to the inquiry record, the underlying fraud was prosecuted at the company level: Wirecard executives Markus Braun and Jan Marsalek were the perpetrators, while Rajeev Misra was an investor who was never charged and is not alleged to have committed fraud ³. According to Germany's Bundestag inquiry, whose report was published in June 2021, the €900 million convertible was documented and Naheta agreed SoftBank could review Wirecard client data at the company's Munich headquarters ³. According to the Irish Times and Business Standard, citing the inquiry record in July 2022, Wirecard forged client data to obtain the €900 million ³.