JAPANESE investment giant Softbank shed a major chunk of its stake in Alibaba to show investors its finances were "rock solid" in the wake of a $23bn (£19.4bn) loss in the second quarter, its finance chief has said.

Softbank's move to sell the majority of its stake in Chinese tech giant for $33.6bn sparked some speculation that the investor was on shaky financial ground.

But Yoshimitsu Goto, chief financial officer at Softbank, insisted yesterday the group had sold in order to reassure investors.

"In times like this, it is critical as an investment group to instantly show that our financial strength is rock solid," Goto said in an interview with the Financial Times.

He added that the sale was designed to mirror a similar move in 2020 when the firm was rocked by the onset of the pandemic and it offloaded a number of holdings.

"We wanted to show the world that we can do something like this because we are financially resilient," he said.

(c) 2022 City A.M., source Newspaper