https://wccftech.com/us-flexes-cfius-muscle-softbank-shudders-amidst-uber-ipo-board-shenanigans/

We’re in the midst of a trade war. Despite the apparent de-escalation in hostilities between the US and China, everyone knows that. What is perhaps less clear are all of the tools that national governments have at their disposal with which to wage such wars and the sometimes collateral damage which can materialise from them and the issue at the moment is SoftBank (TYO:9984) and Uber (not yet public, but will be soon).

Back when SoftBank made its huge investment in Uber in 2017, the Vision Fund piled in with an over $7 billion investment into the ailing ride hailing firm which at the time seemed to be in complete disarray. Key terms as part of the deal were the usual SoftBank array of strings including that it could appoint 2 board members as well as a target of an IPO as soon as reasonably practicable. Well here we are almost a year and a half later and the firm is about to hit publicly traded status after its IPO filing on Thursday, what is missing however are the SoftBank board seats, envisioned to belong to Rajeev Misra and Marcelo Claure.