Paul Elliott Singer: SoftBank’s biggest name is one Son dare not mention

SoftBank Group Corp.’s chairman took to the stage Wednesday afternoon to gloat about the company’s return to profit in a horrible year and to name drop some of the wonderful companies in his orbit.

But the most important name of all was missing: Paul Elliott Singer.

Getting top billing in Masayoshi Son’s earnings presentation was Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which netted the Japanese company a 331.9 billion yen ($3 billion) paper gain for the fourth quarter, and telecom arm SoftBank Corp., contributor of 244 billion yen in operating profit. Sprint Corp. also added to the bottom line, though investors were more excited Wednesday about the long-awaited approval of its merger with T-Mobile US Inc.