UPDATE ON ALIBABA.COM... SOFTBANK SHARES SURGE

I'm pretty sure Masayoshi Son had his influence on the Alibaba.com deal with Yahoo! The benefit of have money invested in both sides :)

Shares of Softbank Corp., controlled by billionaire Masayoshi Son, had their biggest gain in 15 months after the company yesterday sold a stake in a Chinese Web site to Yahoo! Inc. as a part of a $1 billion transaction.

Shares rose 8.1 percent, the biggest jump since May 31 last year, to 4,930 yen at the 3 p.m. close in Tokyo. The stock is the biggest gainer on the Morgan Stanley Capital International World Index in Asian hours.

Yahoo yesterday agreed to pay $1 billion in cash and cede control of its China business to Alibaba.com, China's biggest online retailer, in exchange for a 40 percent stake in the Chinese Internet company. Softbank, which is Alibaba's biggest shareholder and is a founding investor of Yahoo, will own a 27.4 percent stake in the new company. (full article)