SoftBank Fund Said To Draw Investors For Hedge Fund-style Vehicle

The head of SoftBank Group Corp.’s $100 billion Vision Fund has billions of dollars of support for a hedge fund-style vehicle, according to the Financial Times, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter who weren’t identified.

Rajeev Misra, head of the Vision Fund, has support from Abu Dhabi’s state fund Mubadala and the government of Kazakhstan, one person involved in the talks said. The two funds are considering putting up as much as $4 billion together for the vehicle, the person added, the newspaper reported.

Akshay Naheta, a former hedge fund manager and one of Misra’s closest allies at SoftBank’s investments unit, would manage the new Abu Dhabi-based fund, three of the people said.

Naheta drove the money-making bet on German payments company Wirecard AG last year, made through the SoftBank Strategic Investment Fund, the FT said. That fund will be used for the new trading strategy, it added.