Son, Masayoshi

▪ 1997

      Before traveling to the United States to study in 1973, Masayoshi Son repeatedly tried to meet Den Fujita, president of McDonald's Corp. (Japan), Ltd., to seek his advice. When they finally met, Son was told to study computer science. Nearly 20 years later the two met again. Son had become a leading distributor of computer software and related publications in Japan and was president of Softbank Corp. Fujita was deeply moved when Son thanked him for the advice he had given years earlier.

      Son was born in Saga prefecture, Japan, on Aug. 31, 1957; he was a third-generation Korean with Japanese citizenship. Son graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1980 with a major in computer science. While in school, he and a group of other students developed a sound-translation device capable of converting Japanese into English and German. He sold the technology to Sharp Corp. and used the proceeds to establish the predecessor to Softbank after his return to Japan in 1981.

      Son's spectacular success often invited comparisons to Bill Gates, cofounder of Microsoft Corp.; Akio Morita, longtime head of Sony Corp.; and Soichiro Honda, founder of the automobile- and motorcycle-manufacturing company that bore his name. Son, however, differed from the others because he alone expanded his business by using aggressive merger-and-acquisition tactics. Since he first offered Softbank shares on the over-the-counter market in July 1994 to obtain capital, Son was said to have invested between $3 billion and $5 billion on mergers and acquisitions. These included the purchase of Phoenix Publishing Systems Inc., Ziff-Davis Communications Co.'s convention operations and publishing division; the rights to host Comdex, the computer industry's largest trade show from the Interface Group; and a majority share in Kingston Technology Corp., a U.S. memory-card maker. In 1996 Softbank joined News Corp. of Australia, which was run by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, in the purchase of a 21% share of Asahi National Broadcasting Co., a major Japanese commercial television station. A segment of the media called the announcement an unexpected foreign capital invasion of the Japanese broadcasting world. Softbank's sales in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 1996, were reported to have amounted to some $1.4 billion, its assets $3.8 billion, and borrowings $230 million.

      Son financed mergers and acquisitions by issuing corporate bonds rather than obtaining loans from banks. That was perhaps one reason why his company took great care of the stock market and its shareholders. Son defined his merger-and-acquisition tactics as "diplomatic warfare" in which both Softbank and the firm it sought to acquire gained something without having engaged in an all-or-nothing confrontation. (TEIJI SHIMIZU)

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