SoftBank joins Wall Street's latest craze in hunt for acquisitions

 By Michelle Toh, CNN Business

Hong Kong (CNN Business)SoftBank wants in on one of Wall Street's hottest trends as it looks to beef up its tech portfolio once again.

On Monday, the Japanese conglomerate revealed plans to raise over half a billion dollars in New York through an initial public offering of a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

The newly created firm, SVF Investment Corp., plans to list on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol "SVFAU." It will initially seek to raise $525 million, but that could go up to nearly $605 million if there's strong interest in the shares.

SVF is sponsored by a subsidiary of SoftBank Investment Advisers, which oversees the Vision Fund — SoftBank's vehicle for many of the company's splashy tech investments.

SPACs are shell companies with limited or no operating assets, which go public solely to raise money and buy existing businesses. These so-called "blank check" firms used to be sneered at on Wall Street, but have taken off in a big way this year.

Back on offense

The announcement is yet another signal that SoftBank (SFTBF), led by Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, is ready to jump back on the offense after working this year to raise cash during the coronavirus pandemic.

After a string of embarrassing losses, Son forced the firm to hunker down. The company said last month that it had sold off nearly $100 billion in assets throughout the financial year, including $14 billion worth of shares in its Japanese mobile carrier and a $40 billion sale of British chipmaker ARM. The latter is still pending regulatory approval.

But that strategy is changing.

Earlier this year, SoftBank reportedly bought $4 billion worth of options tied to underlying shares it had earlier purchased in tech firms like Amazon, Microsoft and Netflix. While those bets didn't appear to pay off, they did signal that Son was ready to start taking risks again.

This month, SoftBank bought into another new venture, investing about $780 million into Sinch, a Swedish telecoms and cloud services provider.

SoftBank has confirmed that it wants to use its SPAC to make a purchase. In a filing Monday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the new company said that it would look for a potential target somewhere "broadly across the technology landscape," which could include anything from artificial intelligence and fintech to semiconductors and robotics.

It noted that it would not rule out the possibility of buying a company SoftBank has already invested in, saying that it was "not prohibited" from pursuing such a deal. In that event, the firm said it would consult an independent party to ensure that that "is fair to our company from a financial point of view."

SPAC mania

SoftBank is the latest big name to hop on the SPAC bandwagon. So far in 2020, $75.4 billion has been raised through the IPOs of US-listed SPACs, according to data provider Refinitiv.

That's a huge jump from 2019, when such firms only raised $13.1 billion.

A slew of major companies have recently chosen to take the same route, including Playboy, DraftKings, and electric vehicle startups Nikola and Arrival. Billionaire business leaders such as Richard Branson and Peter Thiel have gotten in on the action, too.

But some fear these deals are getting out of hand, and could be an ominous signal of misplaced market euphoria.

Tech stocks have also popped this year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (COMP), for example, has soared 42% so far in 2020.

SoftBank itself alluded to the momentum in its prospectus, saying it had been encouraged to join in after watching the space heat up.

"Over the last 18 months, we have seen significant growth in public market investors' interest in top-quality companies operating in technology-enabled sectors," the company said. "To that end, we believe launching a blank check company now gives us the opportunity to maximize value for our investors."

— Matt Egan and Charles Riley contributed to this report.

Source : edition.cnn.com

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Chinese tech companies bet big on India. Now they're being shut out

Analysis by Sherisse Pham, CNN Business

Hong Kong (CNN Business)India and China's fast-growing tech sectors have been caught in the crossfire of an intense geopolitical standoff this year. While both will suffer from the showdown, Chinese tech companies have more to lose.

Tensions between the two countries have been rising since June, when they engaged in their worst conflict in decades: a bloody clash along a disputed border in the Himalayas that left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead. In the following weeks and months, Indian officials banned apps from Chinese tech giants Bytedance, Alibaba (BABA) and Tencent (TCEHY), and reportedly restricted embattled telecommunications equipment maker Huawei from participating in India's 5G network.

Both countries agreed to deescalate military tensions in September, but that hasn't brought much relief for businesses caught in the dispute. ByteDance's marquee international app, the short-form video platform TikTok, is still banned in India. And last month, the Indian government banned dozens more Chinese apps, citing national security concerns.

The pressures are a problem for companies based in both countries, but the pain is particularly acute for Chinese companies trying to grab a piece of India's explosive internet growth. India is now home to nearly 750 million internet users, more than double the number in 2016, according to the latest government data. Atlas VPN, a market research firm, estimates India will have 1 billion internet users by 2025.

Locked out of that market, Chinese companies "stand to lose riding the ascent of possibly the world's third-largest economy by 2050 and the market with the world's second-largest internet users," said Shirley Yu, visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and founder of a company that assesses strategy, business, and political risk for companies working in China.

Several Chinese tech companies are already feeling the loss.

ByteDance's TikTok lost 200 million Indian users when it was banned in late June. That's twice as many users as the app has in the United States. The Beijing-based company hadn't yet made money on TikTok in India, according to Greg Paull, principal at market research firm R3. But the company had spent heavily on establishing and expanding its slice of the market.

"And now they can only watch the local, copy version apps taking over their users and do nothing," said Paull.

ByteDance and other tech companies also need a lot of data to build better products. India's internet users are demographically diverse and speak many different languages, making the country's data highly prized, according to Gateway House, an Indian foreign policy think tank.

Google (GOOGL) CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post earlier this year that the company's efforts in India "have deepened our understanding of how technology can be helpful to all different types of people."

"Building products for India first has helped us build better products for users everywhere," he wrote.

For internet applications developed by Google and other tech companies, data is like oxygen, said Gateway House director and board member Blaise Fernandes.

Apps need a lot of up-to-date data to keep algorithms competitive, according to Fernandes. He predicts that the deprivation of data from India will handicap Chinese apps' development for global markets.

"The global strategies of Chinese tech firms are now being hijacked," said Abishur Prakash, a geopolitical futurist and co-founder of Center for Innovating the Future, a consulting firm that works on technology and geopolitics.

Chinese companies that had relied on India to build and test new products have seen those plans thrown into jeopardy, he said.

"As India pushes out Chinese tech, a chaotic business landscape is emerging. Now, everything that Chinese tech firms have bet on to succeed in the Indian market is being picked apart," Prakash said.

Investments in valuable Indian start-ups at risk

Beyond developing their own products, Chinese tech companies had been investing heavily in India's tech startups, pouring some $4 billion into the sector since 2015, according to Gateway House.

But India's tightening rules on foreign investment could constrain China's ability to cash in on the country's internet boom.

In April, the Indian government signaled it was taking steps to curb China's growing influence. It announced that foreign direct investments from countries that share a land border with India would be subject to more scrutiny.

The move was "indicative of India's desire to carefully control the inward flow of Chinese investments and assets into the country," according to Sukanti Ghosh, South Asia head for the Washington-based think tank Albright Stonebridge Group.

Then, amid the border clashes in June, the otherwise investor-friendly government of Maharashtra, a western state in India, paused or canceled a number of agreements signed with leading Chinese companies earlier this year, Ghosh said.

Questions have already been raised about the long-term viability of at least one splashy tech investment.

Reuters, citing four people with direct knowledge of the matter, reported last week that Alibaba affiliate Ant Group was thinking about selling its 30% stake in One97, the parent company of popular digital wallet Paytm, because of the rising tensions and tougher competitive landscape.

Both companies denied the report. Ant said in a tweet that the Reuters story is "untrue." Paytm said in a statement that the story is false and misleading.

"There has been no discussion with any of our major shareholders ever, nor any plans, about selling their stake or becoming the controlling shareholder," a Paytm spokesperson said.

India could suffer, too

When it comes to digital payments and financial technology, Ant is widely considered to be a global leader. And if Ant and other Chinese tech companies disengage because of political tensions, India could miss out on leading edge technology.

"In the short term, India will lose out. Tencent is the biggest 'strategic investor' in India's startup world. Meanwhile, Xiaomi invested almost $500 million in India — in a single year," said Prakash.

"Clearly, Chinese tech firms are pumping huge amounts of cash into India's economy," he added.

Smartphone maker Xiaomi invested heavily to build factories in India, and has so far generated employment for some 50,000 Indians, according to local reports. The anti-China sentiment in the country and calls to boycott Chinese products could put those jobs at risk.

Fernandes, of Gateway House, said that other tech companies are already rushing in to fill the void left by Chinese investors, and predicts that India will not suffer for long.

"Post the ban on Chinese apps it is estimated that $25 billion [of foreign direct investment] has found its way to the Digital India story, so in no way" is India losing out, he said.

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's digital company Jio Platforms may have accounted for much of that. It alone has secured more than $20 billion from marquee investors, including Google (GOOGL GOOGLE), Facebook (FB) and KKR, this year.

Achieving digital sovereignty

For the world's two most populous countries, there appears to be no resolution in sight.

India's Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar suggested it could take years for negotiations between China and India to reach their conclusion given the unprecedented build-up of military forces on both sides of the border.

Progress in relations with China requires peace and tranquility along the countries' shared border, Jaishankar told a local newspaper last week. If that's disturbed, as has been the case this year, then obviously, the rest of the relationship cannot be unaffected, he added.

In its own way, India is taking a page out of China's playbook.

Beijing has barred many foreign tech firms from operating freely in China. Some of the world's most popular platforms like Google search and Facebook are banned in China, because of the country's strict censorship laws. Locking out global players also had the added side effect of helping homegrown companies like Baidu (BIDU) and Tencent (TCEHY) flourish.

Even so, India still remains far more open to foreign tech firms than China.

"While India may be going after Chinese tech firms, it is not going after anyone else ... [and] still remains open to the world," Prakash said. "With that said, the one area where New Delhi and Beijing are on the same page is that both nations want to define tech on their own terms," he added.

"For these two nations, controlling tech is equal to sovereignty."

— Swati Gupta contributed to this report.

Source : edition.cnn.com

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Here's the Way to Build a Complete SEO Plan For Your Business

With over a billion sites out there, you may be questioning how to get your organisation site noticed. Whether you’& rsquo; re a passionate blog writer or a little company owner, getting online search engine like Google and Bing to discover you might look like a complicated task.
However, standing out in a crowd of endless websites isn’& rsquo; t impossible. Seo (SEO) is the process of increasing the amount of web traffic your website gets. SEO isn’& rsquo; t a stand-alone procedure, however. It includes various methods and strategies created to improve your site’& rsquo; s rankings on online search engine.

If you & rsquo; re prepared to

broaden your company, get a cup of coffee and a pen and

paper, and begin building your bulletproof SEO strategy. Keywords, Keywords, Keywords If there & rsquo; s something to learn about SEO, it & rsquo; s keywords. Basically, keywords are concepts, phrases, and words that define what your content is about. They are essential since they tell Google what your page is about. For instance, if you own a fish store, you may wish to rank for “& ldquo; bass. & rdquo; With this in mind, you & rsquo; ll wish to use comparable keywords, such as, “& ldquo; fishing, & rdquo; & ldquo;
fish, & rdquo; and & ldquo; fishing pole. & rdquo; It & rsquo; s essential to bear in mind not to overuse keywords, as constant repeating can upset both users and Google. So, be sparing with your keywords, and use LSI keywords (related terms/synonyms) and other versions to lure in natural traffic. Doing so will assist you rank well on Google while also increasing your

site traffic and sales.

Get Authoritative! When we say reliable, we wear’& rsquo; t mean developing into a callous ruler who doesn’& rsquo; t take no for an answer. For SEO purposes, authority refers to the credibility of your site. The New York City Times has a great deal of authority; MyAwesomeBlog.com & hellip; not so much. Your goal is to show Google your site is a trusted source of information.
To acquire authority, you require to begin building links. Link structure ought to be consisted of in every SEO strategy. It’& rsquo; s the process of getting major sites like news sources or popular blogs to position your link on their site. This will reveal Google you’& rsquo; re relied on by others and will likewise direct traffic to your website as users click your link.

Think Regional

The new age crashing on the coasts of digital marketing is regional SEO. With a growing number of individuals utilizing mobile phones, you want to turn up on location-based searches to bring consumers right to your door. Local SEO aims to assist your business get discovered when somebody makes a search using geographical qualifiers such as zip code, city, state, or “& ldquo;
near me. & rdquo; If you want your organisation to end up being the next huge success story, you require to increase your localized presence. To do this, include your street address, city, state, and county to your list of keywords when you compose blog site posts or include new pages.

Produce Compelling Material

Inadequately composed content that stops working to provide helpful details will send out visitors away. Alternatively, overly complicated content that’& rsquo; s hard to understand will leave people clicking the back button and hopping to a brand-new page. Google calls this “& ldquo; pogo-sticking, & rdquo; and it & rsquo; s discredited by this search engine
giant. To rank well on Google, you need to produce content that engages readers, responds to essential questions and leaves them satisfied. This suggests utilizing the right dose of keywords that reads naturally both to the reader and to Google, while offering value-adding details that actually answers a user’& rsquo; s query-- which is no little task.
If you discover yourself wasting too much of your own time composing product pages or article, you can outsource this workload by ’hiring a freelance writer who can enhance your website & rsquo; s content while you concentrate on other business requirements. Looks Matter
We hate to state it & hellip; but looks matter (at least when it concerns website design). Your website might have the best content online, but if you have poor website design, it’& rsquo; ll be forgotten in a jiffy. If Google can’& rsquo; t read what & rsquo; s on your web pages, it & rsquo; s safe to assume users can’& rsquo; t
either. To boost user experience, your site should boast quick load times, interactive aspects, and readable text that keeps users on the page. Whether you run an e-commerce business or own a little fashion jewelry store, optimizing website design will make material accessible to both online search engine and users.

Get Social

There’& rsquo; s a lot of debate around whether social signals aspect into Google’& rsquo; s search algorithm. Online marketers are still uncertain about whether SEO and social media channels are linked. However, it should be kept in mind that likes, shares, and views on social networks platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram do play some sort of aspect in enhancing your brand name & rsquo; s presence. So, actively using social networks can increase your web traffic, even though we’& rsquo; re still not sure regarding how Google aspects this into their newest algorithm.
With that said, social networks is still an effective tool to assist enhance your organisation, and making use of social networks marketing tools can help provide material to reach a larger audience.

Takeaways

Improving your site’& rsquo; s ranking on Google and other online search engine will take some blood, sweat, and tears. But, by including these techniques into your SEO strategy, your business will enjoy a significant increase!

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Toyota and Softbank Develop Car Without Driver

SoftBank and Toyota desire to alter the world of transport through autonomous cars and

other innovations. The prominent Japanese business are forming a joint endeavor called Monet to develop organisations that will use driverless-car innovation to use brand-new services, such as mobile convenience stores and shipment vehicles in which food is prepared en path. SoftBank ( SFTBF)will own simply over half of Monet, while Toyota( TM)will hold the rest. SoftBank( SFTBF)will own just over half of Monet, while Toyota( TM)will hold the rest. The brand-new company ' s name isn ' t a reference to Claude Monet

, the well-known French painter, however rather a shortened version of the words" mobility network."Toyota President Akio Toyoda and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Kid went to the announcement
of the job Thursday in Tokyo, a rare joint look by the heads of 2 of Japan ' s most significant global business. Toyota initially approached SoftBank with the concept of creating a Japanese alliance to attempt to overtake international
competitors that are developing self-governing driving tech. All over the world, top carmakers and tech business like Google ' s parent, Alphabet( GOOGL), and China ' s Baidu( BIDU)are'pouring resources into self-driving lorries. Driverless automobiles have the potential&to cause substantial disruptionin the auto industry and are also most likely to change the
ride-hailing organisation. Kid, SoftBank ' s billionaire creator, presides over a sprawling empire of artificial intelligence companies, web services and ride-hailing start-ups, which'can gather huge quantities of information on traffic patterns, passengers ' demands and other transport patterns. The new endeavor taps into SoftBank ' s benefits in tech and data, and Toyota ' s vehicle-manufacturing know-how'. Its aims include developing ways to tackle problems
produced by Japan ' s quickly aging'society and shrinking workforce. Over the next years, Monet prepares to present services like self-driving buses that can drive the elderly to grocery shops, health center shuttles where medical examinations can be done on board, and mobile offices.
It will focus initially on Japan with a view to expanding globally. SoftBank has already put money into self-governing driving. Its$ 100 billion tech-focused Vision Fund dedicated $2.3 billion to
General Motors ' self-driving automobile unit GM Cruise earlier this year. On Wednesday, another leading Japanese business, Honda( HMC ), said it would likewise invest$2.8 billion in GM Cruise. Toyota has started pumping resources into driverless cars and trucks&. It established a new company in March committed to the research study and advancement of self-driving lorries, with plans to invest$2.8 billion to
develop a commercially viable self-governing automobile. Both SoftBank and Toyota have actually purchased or partnered with some of the world ' s most significant ride-hailing start-ups including Uber, China ' s Didi Chuxing and Singapore-based Grab. The new SoftBank-Toyota endeavor demonstrates how relations in between automakers and tech business have moved
. Twenty years ago, Child approached Toyota with the idea of linking the company ' s Japanese dealerships on the internet. But Toyoda turned him down. At that time, Son said, SoftBank was a small company connecting to the "giant rock" of Toyota. Today, it ' s the carmaker that ' s asking him for assistance.
-- CNN ' s Yoko Wakatsuki added to this report.

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How To Publish Your EZine ?

The Cons
Similarly like another forms of organizations, distributing your own online bulletin a.k.a. eZine encompasses a lot of disadvantages, disregarding the few advantages it offer. The reason for this text isn't to drive you off with the hindrances of distributing your own eZine, because the advantages are frequently progressively alluring.

Be that because it may, i'll likewise provide you with how you'll be able to undoubtedly handle the cons. One evident test most start eZine distributers face is that the production of eZine content. Making your own substance is tedious, particularly on the off chance that you just aren't a talented essayist which you come up short on thoughts now and again that your distributing plan is undermining you.

A method for managing this issue is to create your substance before time. you'll be able to accumulate 30 days worth of substance in sooner or later, for example. On the off chance that you just aren't honored with composing aptitudes, you'll be able to expedite the composing assignment to proficient independent essayists which you'll be able to discover at spots, as an example, http://www.elance.com/or http://www.rentacoder.com/.

While you have got to purchase such administrations, you're at freedom to assume the acknowledgment for composed articles. On the opposite hand, you'll be able to republish articles from article registries, as an example, http://ezinearticles.com/. this can be a free strategy you'll be able to use in making content, if you incorporate the asset box of the primary writer which the article has republishing rights passed on. All in all, you'll be able to without much of a stretch handle the substance creation challenge utilizing the referenced strategies that do not require composing on your part, free or paid.

The Pros
There are some focal points distributing your own eZine can give to you. Hence on the off chance that the aces request to you, at that time distributing your own paperless bulletin is perfect for you. The most clear explanation distributing an eZine is the most effective business to you is that it's so natural to start that someone can do. there's no compelling reason to place resources into beginning a physical business or maybe staff and substantial machines to date as that's concerned. Actually, you'll be able to do that from the solace of your home because the most important thing you'll require is an automatic assistant outfitted with communicate include. Automated assistants, as an example,

GetResponse.com and aWeber.com are enthusiastically prescribed with regards to distributing your own eZine. Notwithstanding the low beginning up cost and month to month charges, you'll be able to herald cash from some benefit communities inside the spaces of your eZine issues. you'll be able to herald cash from selling publicizing space, just to call one.

Above all, you discover a decent pace claim individual media and spread your promoting impact, making you increasingly significant to item and administration proprietors therefore do not be shocked on the off chance that you just get venture recommendations now and again. Given probably the most effective reasons within the realm of Internet Marketing, distributing your own periodical eZine can extraordinary compared to other cash vehicles you'll ever get or maybe form.

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