Masayoshi Son, chief executive of SoftBank, prepares for a ‘worst case scenario’ as cases rise.

Masayoshi Son, the founder and chief govt of the Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank, warned at a DealBook convention on Tuesday that he was getting ready for “the worst case state of affairs” as virus circumstances improve all over the world.

“Within the brief run, I’m pessimistic,” Mr. Son mentioned throughout an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Occasions DealBook Online Summit.

“It’s nonetheless growing, the second wave or third wave of Covid-19 all over the world,” he mentioned, talking by video from Tokyo. “After all, the vaccine is coming, the antibodies, however who is aware of, within the subsequent two, three months, any catastrophe might occur, so we’re simply getting ready for the worst case state of affairs.”

SoftBank has been aggressively promoting belongings to extend money available, which he mentioned could possibly be used to buy undervalued belongings or purchase again SoftBank inventory.

“Money is essential in this type of disaster,” Mr. Son mentioned.

Elaborating on attainable eventualities, Mr. Son mentioned a serious firm might crash and trigger a domino-effect catastrophe, just like the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers did, earlier than a vaccine is extensively distributed.

“I feel it’s getting higher with the information of the vaccine’s success, however I nonetheless wish to be ready,” he mentioned.

In March, Mr. Son broke a three-year Twitter silence when he wrote, “I’m nervous in regards to the state of affairs of the brand new coronavirus.”

On the time, he instructed Mr. Sorkin, he noticed the potential for an financial disaster that might have an effect on “many individuals’s jobs, many individuals’s well being, life” and could possibly be devastating for start-ups that lacked the funds to make it by.

Mr. Son now runs the biggest personal testing facility in Japan. “I used to be feeling this could possibly be one thing a lot larger than individuals might imagine,” he instructed Mr. Sorkin.



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