SoftBank (SFTB.Y 0.28%), the Japanese tech company, is losing Alibaba (BABA 0.09%) co-founder Jack Ma as a board member.
In conjunction with reporting fiscal year ending March 31 results, SoftBank said that after thirteen years on the board Ma will resign effective June 25, 2020. Ma's departure comes at a time when the executive, who retired from Alibaba this past fall, is focusing more on his philanthropic efforts.
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It also ends a long relationship between Ma and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. In 2000, Son invested $20 million in Alibaba before it became the leading eCommerce company in China. SoftBank still retains an investment in Alibaba, which has appreciated greatly over the years. Alibaba's market value stands at more than $570 billion today.
SoftBank is nominating three new members to the board, including Yoshimitsu Goto, CFO of SoftBank Group; Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of the semiconductor software company Cadence Design Systems; and Yuko Kawamoto, a professor at Waseda Business School. Tan is also the chairman of Walden International, a venture capital firm. Outside of Ma, SoftBank plans to retain the ten other existing board members. If the nominees get elected, the newly formed board will consist of thirteen members.
Separately, the tech stock announced plans to buy back 500 billion yen, or $4.7 billion, in stock by the end of March 2021. That's in addition to the $4.8 billion in shares Softbank announced it would repurchase in March of this year. The company is reportedly in talks to sell its stake in T-Mobile to Deutsche Telekom.
