Tech giant, Apple Inc. AAPL will contribute $1 billion to SoftBank’s massive tech fund. The Japanese giant is looking to set up a $100 billion fund to make big investments, going ahead.
At a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump in December, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son had said that half of the funds will be directed toward investments in startups and creation of 50K jobs in the U.S.
SoftBank is one of the biggest telecom and Internet companies in Japan. The company has an 80% stake in Sprint Corp. In fact, SoftBank has secured the "exclusive" rights of selling iPhone in Japan. Apple and Softbank CEOs, reportedly, share a good rapport and both the companies have had inked numerous collaborations in the last few years.
An Apple spokesperson was quoted as saying “We've worked closely with SoftBank for many years and we believe their new fund will speed the development of technologies which may be strategically important to Apple."
Apart from Apple, SoftBank is itself contributing $25 billion to the fund and is reportedly trying to convince Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment fund to add $45 billion to the pool. Other tech giants like Qualcomm Inc. QCOM and Oracle Corp. ORCL are also reportedly interested in contributing to the fund.
Analysts observe that Apple has so far kept its investment strategy limited to buying smaller stakes in tech startups. However, after making a $1 billion investment in DidiChuxing, Apple has been amending its investment roadmap. Citing sources familiar with the matter, WSJ had earlier pointed out that Apple could benefit from investing in the funds as it will “gain insight on emerging technologies”. Apple is one of the world’s most valuable companies in terms of market value and boasts a cash pile of over $200 billion.
At present, Apple carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
In the past one year, Apple has underperformed the broader market. Shares of Apple have grown over 12.96% compared with the Zacks Computer Mini industry’s gain of 14.06%.
A better-ranked stock worth consideration in the broader tech space is LivePerson, Inc. LPSN, which carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
LivePerson has delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 56.43% over the trailing four quarters.
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