By Eliot Brown

Global tech investor SoftBank posted a $7.7 billion profit in the third quarter, its largest in two years by far. Aiding results: a run-up in shares from an old investment in T-Mobile that long provided humdrum returns.

SoftBank said the stake added about $2.5 billion in profit in the quarter. That came on top of smaller, but still sizable, gains in its holdings of Korean e-commerce giant Coupang and Chinese ride-hailing company Didi.

The gains come over a decade after SoftBank bought U.S. carrier Sprint in 2013, intending to merge it with T-Mobile and create a giant mobile provider to compete head-to-head with AT&T and Verizon. SoftBank ran into resistance from the Obama administration, but the two ultimately merged in 2020.

While T-Mobile stock languished in the early years of the decade, it has been on a tear since late 2023, aided by strong profits:

In all, SoftBank says the 2.1 trillion yen-$13.6 billion in today's dollars-that it invested, starting with the Sprint acquisition, including debt, turned into the equivalent of $36 billion by Sept. 30.

Dig deeper into Tuesday's earnings here.

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 12, 2024 07:45 ET (12:45 GMT)

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