TOKYO: Softbank Group Corp. said Thursday that its consolidated net loss for the fiscal year that ended in March is expected to widen to 900 billion yen.

The downward revision from the company's initial estimation of 750 billion yen in net loss reflected larger-than-expected losses related to investments made in The We Company of the United States, the operator of the WeWork office-sharing business.

The Japanese telecommunications and technology investment group expects to fall deep into the red only a year after reporting as much as 1,411.1 billion yen in net profit for fiscal 2018, which ended in March 2019.

It will be the first red ink for Softbank Group since the fiscal year to March 2005 and the largest net loss since its establishment in 1981.

Softbank Group had estimated that it will book a nonoperating loss of 800 billion yen from investments in startup companies and other operations. It now expects the loss to swell up to over one trillion yen, 700 billion of which is related to The We Company.

The company kept its group sales and operating loss projections unchanged for fiscal 2019, at 6.15 trillion yen and 1.35 trillion yen, respectively. It will announce the year's earnings results on May 18.

On April 13, Softbank Group said its Softbank Vision Fund is projected to have incurred a loss of some 1.8 trillion yen in the wake of a global stock market tailspin caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The company's previous earnings forecasts for fiscal 2019 were announced on this day.

JIJI Press