SoftBank sells entire Nvidia stake for $5.8 billion in surprise move

SoftBank Group Corp. sold its entire stake in Nvidia Corp., pocketing $5.8 billion ahead of a rash of planned investments by founder Masayoshi Son to build his own sphere of influence supporting artificial intelligence.

The Tokyo-based company had raised its stake in Nvidia to about $3 billion by the end of March. That stake and a windfall at the Vision Fund startup investment unit helped SoftBank report a surprise net income of ¥2.5 trillion ($16.2 billion) in its fiscal second quarter, far outrunning the average of analyst estimates of ¥418.2 billion.