People familiar with the matter said SoftBank Group Corp. Chief Operating Officer Marcelo Claure is making preparations to leave the Japanese conglomerate after he clashed with founder Masayoshi Son over his compensation and responsibilities.
The 51-year-old Bolivian American agreed to sell a majority stake in his cellphone distributor to SoftBank in 2013, becoming one of Son's top lieutenants and a billionaire in the process. Claure, who was SoftBank's second-highest paid executive in the last financial year, has often pushed for more money and authority.
He has pressed for 115 billion $1 billion in compensation because of his contributions, including the turnaround and sale of Sprint Corp. and the listing of troubled WeWork. He also advocated for a spinoff of the Latin American investment fund he oversees for SoftBank, he said last year.
One person said that the COO plans to leave the company over the next few weeks, and Claure had floated the idea of resigning in the past without actually doing so.
People familiar with the matter said that Claure argued that the Latin American spinoff would help build the business and create value for SoftBank, while boosting his own compensation. Son thought it would complicate management and governance because he saw little merit in a spinoff for SoftBank shareholders, and thought it would complicate management and governance. In October, Bloomberg News reported that it was possible that Claure would leave SoftBank due to the disagreement.
Because of the work in tackling difficult operational challenges for Son, Claure, who was promoted to COO in 2018, raised the idea of much higher compensation. Claure took over as Chief Executive Officer of Sprint and led the U.S. carrier's turnaround, culminating in SoftBank selling the business to T-Mobile U.S. Inc. in 2020.
After the company s failed initial public offering in 2019, he helped salvage an investment in WeWork. He remains chairman of the office-sharing business, which went public in October under the leadership of CEO Sandeep Mathrani.
The Latin American venture isn't as high-profile as SoftBank's mammoth Vision Fund, but it has grown to $8 billion in assets since its launch in March 2019. The initial fund, under Claure's leadership, has backed 48 companies and generated an internal rate of return of 85% in dollar terms, the company said in September.
Son and SoftBank had a tumultuous year. The Vision Fund had several blockbuster successes, including South Korean e-commerce pioneer Coupang Inc. and delivery service DoorDash Inc., which pushed SoftBank's stock to more than 10,000 in March.
Son s company has suffered a lot of bad news in the last few months, including China s crackdown on its technology companies. The most valuable single investment of SoftBank, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., has been one of the primary targets of Beijing's antitrust push. SoftBank is a major backer of Didi Global Inc., the ride-hailing giant that said it would delist from U.S. exchanges only five months after its IPO.
In December, U.S. antitrust officials tried to block SoftBank's sale of chip designer Arm Ltd. to Nvidia Corp. Nvidia is preparing to abandon its effort to acquire Arm after the regulatory pushback, it was reported earlier this week.