Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is lowering its exposure to a credit line extended to SoftBank Group Corp.'s Vision Fund as part of its risk management exercises, Bloomberg reported.
The investment bank is seeking to sell pieces of its stake in the loan as small as $50 million but has sold significantly larger portions, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to S&P Global Market Intelligence. The risk management exercise has been ongoing for a few months.
The $3.1 billion loan to the Vision Fund was arranged by Goldman Sachs and Mizuho International PLC and was syndicated to a group of banks including Standard Chartered PLC, Citigroup Inc., Barclays PLC, Banca Intesa, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc., Samba Financial Group and Royal Bank of Canada, according to a SoftBank presentation.
Bloomberg reported that Goldman Sachs reached out to other banks outside the syndicate group to take on parts of the loan. The S&P Global Market Intelligence source disputed that account, saying no discussions have been held outside the syndicate group. Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
The person also said the move to cut exposure to the loan is unrelated to SoftBank's investment in The We Co.'s WeWork Cos. Inc., which has seen its valuation fall ahead of a planned IPO amid concerns about its corporate governance and business model. The company was valued at $47 billion after its latest private fundraising round, but the figure was subsequently slashed to a range of $10 billion to $12 billion. WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann stepped down as CEO on Sept. 24, though he will continue on as nonexecutive chairman.
