No more a tech firm: Softbank gives up pretending it isn’t a hegde fund

SoftBank Group Corp. has given up pretending to operate anything.

Once the owner of two telecom companies and a collection of other operating businesses, the Japanese conglomerate would report quarterly operating profit and net income.

That’s how most normal companies do it. In days past, the former category included profits from Sprint Corp. and Softbank Corp., as well as operating income from the SoftBank Vision Fund, but excluded gains or losses from other investments.

On Tuesday, SoftBank announced it will no longer bother reporting operating income, instead “gain (loss) on investments will be used in order to show investment performance in the consolidated financial results.” The catalyst was the sale of Sprint to T-Mobile US Inc., meaning that the U.S. mobile operator is no longer a consolidated entity.