SoftBank books lower Q1 profit, gain on Intel stake

TOKYO, Aug 6 : SoftBank Group on Thursday reported an 18 per cent fall in first-quarter net income to 347.3 billion yen ($2.20 billion), beating analyst estimates, and booked a gain on its stake in chipmaker Intel. The investment and technology conglomerate booked record net income of more than 5 trillion yen last year, boosted by the rising value of its holdings in ChatGPT developer OpenAI.SoftBank made an investment gain of 1.86 trillion yen over the quarter, mostly due to a gain of 1.33 trillion yen on its shareholding in Intel, whose shares have rallied. Intel is run by Masayoshi Son's ally Lip-Bu Tan and SoftBank made a $2 billion investment in the chipmaker last year as it underwent restructuring. With OpenAI preparing for an initial public offering that may be held off until next ye