Exclusive-SoftBank Vision Fund CFO is leaving company, memo shows

By Anton Bridge

TOKYO, June 16 (Reuters) – The chief financial officer of SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund investing arm, Navneet Govil, is leaving the company after a decade there, according to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters.

The company will share details regarding transition responsibilities in due course, Alex Clavel, CEO of SoftBank Investment Advisors, wrote in the memo.

Reuters is reporting the move for the first time. SoftBank Vision Fund declined to comment.

Govil, CFO of SoftBank Investment Advisors, first joined SoftBank in 2016, a year before the launch of the first Vision Fund, which upended the startup investing world with its high-conviction bets.

Govil “has been a valuable partner across the business as our organization navigated significant market volatility, transformation, and unprecedented change,” the memo said.

His departure comes as SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son’s focus has shifted to the artificial intelligence boom, which is reshaping the technology sector, including a major bet on ChatGPT maker OpenAI.

Govil, who is of Indian descent and was born and raised in Zambia, studied in the U.S. and has held finance positions at companies including Pfizer and CA Technologies.

Even as high-profile executives including CEO Rajeev Misra left the investing arm, Govil remained, providing continuity and appearing at the group’s quarterly earnings briefings in Tokyo.

The Saudi-backed first Vision Fund’s investments included office-sharing firm WeWork, which soured as some of the hottest startups fell out of market favour.

Investments through a second fund, launched in 2019, were buffeted by market volatility, forcing SoftBank to retrench once more. The Vision Fund underwent layoffs and restructuring.

Vision Fund 2 has now become the holding entity for Son’s oversized bet on OpenAI, with SoftBank posting big valuation gains but also sparking concerns about its exposure to a single company.

In May, SoftBank posted a net profit of 5 trillion yen ($31.2 billion) from the OpenAI boost, which it said was the largest ever by a Japanese company. Its shares are up almost 60% so far this year.

(Reporting by Anton Bridge; Editing by Sam Nussey, Chang-Ran Kim and Thomas Derpinghaus)