Nikesh Arora, the President of SoftBank Group Corp, has quit the organization and it is like a rude shock for the people in business circle as the CEO Masayoshi Son had earlier announced that Nikesh would be his successor. Nikesh used to be a part of Google two years back till Son brought him in SoftBank.
Masayoshi was planning to retire at the age of 60 earlier but now he is thinking of spending some more time in his organization at the top post, may be for next 5 or 10 years. Masayoshi, who is presently 58, said, “I was thinking of handing over my job as CEO when I turn 60, but thought maybe I’m still a bit too young, and still have energy to continue.”
However, there is news that some investors were not happy with Nikesh as well as the investments that he made for SoftBank. They not only questioned his record and decisions but also ran a drive to get rid of him; Nikesh said that the claims made by the investors are baseless.
Nikesh was one of the highest paid professionals in the world as SoftBank paid him $208 million in the last two years which is Rs. 14033645600 in Indian currency.
SoftBank is under the debt of around $80 billion; its profit growth is slowing and its acquisition of U.S. wireless carrier Sprint Corp has also not proved fruitful till now. SoftBank is going to sell its stake in Supercell, the Finnish game maker to Tencent Holdings Ltd of China, in order to raise cash and it is expected that SoftBank will get more than $7 billion in this deal.
Nikesh told the media that he would still be associated with SoftBank as an advisor however, now he may also think about his next move. He took to Twitter where he posted that SoftBank would be benefitted a lot with the sale of Supercell and he made it clear that the relations between him and Masayoshi are cordial and he is firmly standing with “every investment of SoftBank.”
Masayoshi told that, “SoftBank Director Ron Fisher and Baer Capital Partners founder Alok Sama will fill Mr. Arora’s role in directing overseas investments.” SoftBank was founded by Masayoshi Son in 1981 as software distributer and now it is Japan’s one of the largest mobile-phone service providers, having stakes in over 1000 companies.
Do you think it’s a wise decision on the part of Nikesh? Share your views in the comments section below.