Problems at SoftBank Group Corp. continue to mount as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder Jack Ma today quit the board following the announcement that the company’s Vision Fund had reported an $18 billion loss.

Officially the departure of Ma (pictured) from the company was related to his decision to pull back from formal business roles to focus on philanthropy, a move Ma first mooted in 2018. That said, the timing of the announcement would be a large coincidence. Ma retired as Alibaba’s executive chairman in September, according to Reuters.

On the earnings side, SoftBank founder and Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for the loss, saying at an earnings presentation that some of his tech unicorns had fallen “into the valley of the coronavirus,” comparing the pandemic to the Great Depression.

Part of the loss stemmed from write-downs in key investments including We Co., the parent company of troubled office provider WeWork as well as Uber Technologies Inc. The Vision Fund valued its investments in 88 startups at $69.6 billion as of the end of Mach compared to the $75 billion invested.

SoftBank also booked a $7.5 billion loss in other tech investments, attributed primarily to the COVID-19 pandemic.

There’s no question that some of SoftBank’s losses, possibly a majority, are the fault of the pandemic’s impacts, but the company’s investments had problems that were already in play before the pandemic hit. WeWork sits at the top of the list: The company came close to imploding in 2019 though mismanagement and overvaluation.

The WeWork story is a long one but culminated in its founders being forced out with SoftBank offering to acquire an 80% stake in the company in October for about $8 billion. The deal fell through April 2 after WeWork failed to meet the conditions of the sale, with SoftBank withdrawing $3 billion it offered to buy the shares from former CEO Adam Neumann, Benchmark Capital and others. A special committee of We Co. voted to sue SoftBank over the failed deal April 7 even though the company was alive because of SoftBank’s financing.

The stated loss on SoftBank’s investment in We Co. alone was at $5 billion through the end of the fiscal year ended March 2020. Given the ongoing drama, more losses from the investment are likely in the future.

In addition to announcing the loss, SoftBank also said it would spend $4.66 billion of its own money to repurchase its own shares as part of a broader $41 billion debt reduction plan.

Photo: The Kremlin